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THE WATER-BABIES 




























THE 


WATER-BABIES 

31 JfaujT ®ale for a ICanfr-IBalm 


BY 

CHARLES KINGSLEY 

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NEW EDITION 

WITH ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE 


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Neto gork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
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LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1901 




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Reprinted September, 1895; September, 1897. 
July, 1899; August, 1900; November, 1901. 

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Berwick & Smith, Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



TO 

MY YOUNGEST SON 

GRENVILLE ARTHUR 

AND 

TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS 


COME READ ME MY RIDDLE, EACH GOOD LITTLE MAN J 
IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, NO GROWN-UP FOLK CAN. 







I heard a thousand blended notes, 

While in a grove I sate reclined ; 

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 
Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 

“ To her fair works did Nature link 

The human soul that through me ran ; 
And much it grieved my heart to think, * 
What man has made of man. ” 


Wordsworth. 


CHAPTER I 



upon a time there 
was a little chimney- 
sweep, and his name was Tom. That is a short name, 
and you have heard it before, so you will not have 
much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a great 
town in the North country, where there were plenty 
of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of money for Tom 
to earn and his master to spend. He could not read 
nor write, and did not care to do either ; and he never 
washed himself, for there was no water up the court 
where he lived. He had never been taught to say his 
IE b 


2 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


prayers. He never had heard of God, or of Christ, 
except in words which you never have heard, and 
which it would have been well if he had never heard. 
He cried half his time, and laughed the other half. 
He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing 
his poor knees and elbows raw ; and when the soot 
got into his eyes, which it did every day in the week ; 
and when his master beat him, which he did every 
day in the week ; and when he had not enough to 
eat, which happened every day in the week likewise. 
And he laughed the other half of the day, when he 
was tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or playing 
leap-frog over the posts, or bowling stones at the 
horses’ legs as they trotted by, which last was ex- 
cellent fun, when there was a wall at hand behind 
which to hide. As for chimney-sweeping, and being 
hungry, and being beaten, he took all that for the 

way of the world, 
like the rain and 
snow and thun- 
der, and stood 
manfully with 
his back to it 
till it was over, 
as his old donkey 
did to a hail- 
storm ; and then 
shook his ears and was as jolly as ever ; and thought 
of the fine times coming, when he would be a man, 



I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


3 


and a master sweep, and sit in the public-house with 
a quart of beer and a long pipe, and play cards for 
silver money, and wear velveteens and ankle-jacks, 
and keep a white bull-dog with one gray ear, and 
carry her puppies in his pocket, just like a man. 
And he would have apprentices, one, two, three, if he 



could. How he would bully them, and knock them 
about, just as his master did to him ; and make them 
carry home the soot sacks, while he rode before them 
on his donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower 
in his button -hole, like a king at the head of his 
army. Yes, there were good times coming ; and, when 
his master let him have a pull at the leavings of his 
beer, Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town. 



4 


THE WATER- BABIES 


CHAP. 


One day a smart little groom rode into the court 
where Tom lived. Tom was just hiding behind a wall, 
to heave half a brick at his horse’s legs, as is the 
custom of that country when they welcome strangers ; 
but the groom saw him, and halloed to him to know 
where Mr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived. Now, 
Mr. Grimes was Toni’s own master, and Tom was a 
good man of business, and always civil to customers, 
so he put the half-brick down quietly behind the wall, 
and proceeded to take orders. 

Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir 
John Harthover’s, at the Place, for his old chimney- 
sweep was gone to prison, and the chimneys wanted 
sweeping. And so he rode away, not giving Tom time 
to ask what the sweep had gone to prison for, which 
was a matter of interest to Tom, as he had been in 
prison once or twice himself. Moreover, the groom 
looked so very neat and clean, with his drab gaiters, 
drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie with a smart 
pin in it, and clean round ruddy face, that Tom 
was offended and disgusted at his appearance, and con- 
sidered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave himself airs 
because he wore smart clothes, and other people paid 
for them; and went behind the wall to fetch the half- 
brick after all ; but did not, remembering that he had 
come in the way of business, and was, as it were, 
under a flag of truce. 

His master was so delighted at his new customer 
that he knocked Tom down out of hand, and drank 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


5 


more beer that night than he usually did in two, in 
order to be sure of getting up in time next morning ; 
for the more a man’s head aches when he wakes, the 
more glad he is to turn out, and have a breath of fresh 
air. And, when he did get up at four the next morn- 
ing, he knocked Tom down again, in order to teach 
him (as young gentlemen used to he taught at public 
schools) that he must he an extra good boy that day, 
as they were^ going to a very great house, and might 
make a very good thing of it, if they could but give 
satisfaction. 

And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would 
have done and behaved his best, even without being- 
knocked down. For, of all places upon earth, Harth- 
over Place (which he had never seen) was the most 
wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom 
he had seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) 
was the most awful. 

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for 
the rich North country ; with a house so large that in 
the frame-breaking riots, which Tom could just remem- 
ber, the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand soldiers 
to match, were easily housed therein ; at least, so Tom 
believed ; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed 
to be monsters who were in the habit of eating children; 
with miles of game-preserves, . in which Mr. Grimes 
and the collier lads poached at times, on which 
occasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they 
tasted like ; with a noble salmon-river, in which Mr 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach ; 
but then they must have got into cold water, and that 
they did not like at all. In short, Harthover was a 
grand place, and Sir J ohn a grand old man, whom even 



Mr. Grimes respected ; for not only could he send Mr. 
Grimes to prison when he deserved it, as he did once 
or twice a week ; not only did he own all the land 
about for miles; not only was he a jolly, honest, 
sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who 



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


7 


would do what he thought right by his neighbours, as 
well as get what he thought right for himself ; but, 
what was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was no- 
body knew how many inches round the chest, and 
could have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, 
which very few folk round there could do, and which, 
my dear little boy, would not have been right for him 
to do, as a great many things are not which one both 
can do, and would like very much to do. So Mr. 
Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through 
the town, and called him a “buirdly awd chap,” and 
his young ladies “gradely lasses,” which are two high 
compliments in the North country ; and thought that 
that made up for his poaching Sir John’s pheasants ; 
whereby you may perceive that Mr. Grimes had not 
been to a properly -inspected Government National 
School. 

Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o’clock 
on a midsummer morning. Some people get up then 
because they want to catch salmon ; and some because 
they want to climb Alps ; and a great many more 
because they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that 
three o’clock on a midsummer morning is the pleas- 
antest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all the 
three hundred and sixty-five days ; and why every 
one does not get up then, I never could tell, save that 
they are all determined to spoil their nerves and their 
complexions by doing all night what they might just 
as well do all day. But Tom, instead of going out to 


8 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


dinner at half-past eight at night, and to a ball at ten, 
and finishing off somewhere between twelve and four, 
went to bed at seven, when his master went to the 
public-house, and slept like a dead pig ; for which 
reason he was as piert as a game-cock (who always 
gets up early to wake the maids), and just ready to 
get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just 
ready to go to bed. 

So he and his 
master set out ; 
Grimes rode the 
donkey in front, 
and Tom and the 
brushes, walked 
behind; out of the 
court, and up the 
street, past the 
closed window- 
shutters, and the winking weary policemen, and the 
roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn. 

They passed through the pitmen’s village, all shut 
up and silent now, and through the turnpike; and 
then they were out in the real country, and plodding 
along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, 
with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the 
pit-engine in the next field. But soon the road grew 
white, and the walls likewise ; and at the wall’s foot 
grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with 
dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine. 



I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


they heard the skylark saying his matins high up in 
the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he 
had warbled all night long. 

All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still 
fast asleep ; and, like many pretty people, she looked 
still prettier asleep than awake. The great elm-trees 
in the gold-green meadows were fast askep above, and 
the cows fast asleep beneath them ; nay, the few 
clouds which were about were fast asleep likewise, 
and so tired that they had lain down on the earth to 
rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems 
of the elm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by 
the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise and 
go about their day’s business in the clear blue 
overhead. 

On they went ; and Tom looked, and looked, for 
he never had' been so far into the country before ; and 
longed to get over a gate, and pick buttercups, and 
look for birds’ nests in the hedge ; but Mr. Grimes 
was a man of business, and would not have heard of 
that. 

Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudg- 
ing along with a bundle at her back. She had a gray 
shawl over her head, and a crimson madder petticoat ; 
so you may be sure she came from Galway. She had 
neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if 
she were tired and footsore ; but she was a very tall 
handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy 
black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took 


10 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Mr. Grimes’ fancy so much, that when he came along- 

“ This is a hard 
road for a gradely 
foot like that. Will 
ye up, lass, and ride 
behind me ? ” 

But, perhaps, she 
did not admire Mr. 
Grimes’ look and 
voice ; for she an- 
swered quietly : 

“ No, thank you: 
I’d sooner walk 
with your little 
lad here.” 

“You may 
please yourself,” 
growled Grimes, and went on smoking. 

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and 
asked him where he lived, and what he knew, and all 
about himself, till Tom thought he had never met such 
a pleasant -spoken woman. And she asked him, at 
last, whether he said his prayers ! and seemed sad 
when he told her that he knew no prayers to say. 

Then he asked her where she lived, and she said 
far away by the sea. And Tom asked her about the 
sea ; and she told him how it rolled and roared over 
the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright 


side he called out to her : 



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


11 


summer days, for the children to bathe and play in it ; 
and many a story more, till Tom longed to go and see 
the sea, and bathe in it likewise. 

At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a 
spring ; not such a spring as you see here, which soaks 
up out of a white gravel in the bog, among red fly- 
catchers, and pink bottle -heath, and sweet white 
orchis ; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, 
which bubbles up under the warm sandbank in the 
hollow lane, by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes 
the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, all 
the year round ; not such a spring as either of those ; 
but a real North country limestone fountain, like one 
of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen 
fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves the hot 
summer’s day, while the shepherds peeped at them 
from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, 
at the foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, 
quelling, and bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you 
could not tell where the water ended and the air 
began ; and ran away under the road, a stream large 
enough to turn a mill ; among blue geranium, and 
golden globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird- 
cherry with its tassels of snow. 

And there Grimes stopped, and -looked ; and Tom 
looked too. Tom was wondering whether anything 
lived in that dark cave, and came out at night to fly 
in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at 
all. Without a word, he got off his donkey, and 


12 


THE "WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


clambered over the low road wall, and knelt down, 
and began dipping his ugly head into the spring — and 
very dirty he made it. 

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. 
The Irishwoman helped him, and showed him how to 
tie them up ; and a very pretty nosegay they had 
made between them. But when he saw Grimes 
actually wash, he stopped, quite ustonished ; and when 
Grimes had finished, and began shaking his ears to 
dry them, he said : 

“ Why, master, I never saw you do that before.” 

“ Nor will again, most likely. ’T wasn’t for cleanli- 
ness I did it, but for coolness. I’d be ashamed to want 
washing every week or so, like any smutty collier lad.” 

“ I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said poor 
little Tom. “ It must be as good as putting it under 
the town-pump ; and there is no beadle here to drive 
a chap away.” 

“ Thou come along,” said Grimes ; “ what dost want 
with washing thyself? Thou did not drink half a 
gallon of beer last night, like me.” 

“ I don’t care for you,” said naughty Tom, and ran 
down to the stream, and began washing his face. 

Grimes was very sulky, because the woman pre- 
ferred Tom’s company to his ; so he dashed at him 
with horrid words, and tore him up from his knees, 
and began beating him. But Tom was accustomed to 
that, and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes’ legs, 
and kicked his shins with all his might. 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


13 


“ Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes ? ” 
cried the Irishwoman over the wall. 

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his 
name; but all he- answered was, “No, nor never was 
yet ; ” and went on beating Tom. 

“ True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of 
yourself, you would have gone over into Yendale long 
ago.” 

“What do you know about Yendale?” shouted 
Grimes ; but he left off beating Tom. 

“ I know about Yendale, and about you, too. I 
know, for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, 
by night, two years ago come Martinmas.” 

“ You do ? ” shouted Grimes ; and leaving Tom, he 
climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman. Tom 
thought he was going to strike her; but she looked 
him too full and fierce in the face for that. 

“ Yes ; I was there,” said the Irishwoman quietly. 

“ You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said 
Grimes, after many bad words. 

“ Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw ; and 
if you strike that boy again, I can tell what I know.” 

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey 
without another word. 

“ Stop ! ” said the Irishwoman. “ I have one more 
word for you both ; for you will both see me again 
before all is over. Those that wish to be clean, clean 
they will be ; and those that wish to be foul, foul they 
will be. Kemember.” 


14 


THE WATEtt-BABIES 


CHAP. 


And she turned away, and through a gate into the 
meadow. Grimes stood still a moment, like a man 
who had been stunned. Then he rushed after her, 



shouting, “ You come back/’ But when he got into 
the meadow, the woman was not there. 

Had she hidden away ? There was no place to 
hide in. But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for 
he was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her disappear- 



I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


15 


ing so suddenly ; but look where they would, she was 
not there. 

Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he 



was a little frightened ; and, getting on his donkey, 
filled a fresh pipe, and smoked away, leaving Tom in 
peace. 

And now they had gone three miles and more, and 
came to Sir John’s lodge-gates. 


16 


THE WATER- BABIES 


CHAP. 


Very grand lodges they were, with very grand iron 
gates and stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a 
most dreadful bogy, all teeth, horns, and tail, which 
was the crest which Sir John’s ancestors wore in the 
Wars of the Roses ; and very prudent men they were 
to wear it, for all their enemies must have run for 
their lives at the very first sight of them. 

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper on 
the spot, and opened. 

“ I was told to expect thee,” he said. “ Now thou’lt 
be so good as to keep to the main avenue, and not let 
me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou comest 
back. I shall look sharp for one, I tell thee.” 

“ Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” quoth 
Grimes, and at that he laughed ; and the keeper 
laughed and said': 

“ If that’s thy sort, I may as well walk up with 
thee to the hall.” 

“ I think thou best had. It’s thy business to see 
after thy game, man, and not mine.” 

So the keeper went with them ; and, to Tom’s sur- 
prise, he and Grimes chatted together all the way quite 
pleasantly. He did not know that a keeper is only a 
poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper 
turned inside out. 

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile 
long, and between their stems Tom peeped trembling 
at the horns of the sleeping deer, which stood up 
among the ferns. Tom had never seen such enormous 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


17 


trees, and as he looked up he fancied that the blue 
sky rested on their heads. But he was puzzled very 
much by a strange murmuring noise, which followed 
them all the way. So much puzzled, that at last he 
took courage to ask the keeper what it was. 

He spoke very civilly, and called him Sir, for he 



was horribly afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, 
and he told him that they were tke bees about the 
lime flowers. 

“ What are bees V ’ asked Tom. 

“ What make honey.” 

“What is honey?” asked Tom. 

“ Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes. 


18 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ Let the boy be,” said the keeper. “ He’s a civil 
young chap now, and that’s more than he’ll be long if 
he bides with thee.” 

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment. 

“ I wish I were * a keeper,” said Tom, “ to live in 
such a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and 
have a real dog-whistle at my button, like you.” 

The keeper laughed ; he was a kind-hearted fellow 
enough. 

“ Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times. Thy 
life’s safer than mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes ? ” 

And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men 
began talking quite low. Tom could hear, though, 
that it was about some poaching fight ; and at last 
Grimes said surlily, “ Hast thou anything against me ? ” 

“Not now.” 

“ Then don’t ask me any questions till thou hast, 
for I am a man of honour.” 

And at that they both laughed again, and thought 
it a very good joke. 

And by this time they were come up to the great 
iron gates in front of the house; and Tom stared 
through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas, which 
were all in flower ; and then at the house itself, and 
wondered how many chimneys there were in it, and 
how long ago it was built, and what was the man’s 
name that built it, and whether he got much money 
for his job ? 

These last, were very difficult questions to answer. 


I A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 19 

For Harthover had been built at ninety different 
times, and in nineteen different styles, and looked as 
if somebody had built a whole street of houses of 
every imaginable shape, and then stirred them together 
with a spoon. 

For the attics were Anglo-Saxon. 

The third floor Norman. 

The second Cinque-cento. 

The first-floor Elizabethan. 

The right wing Pure Boric. 

The centre Early English, with a huge portico copied 
from the Parthenon. 

The left wing pure Boeotian, which the country folk 
admired most of all, because it was just like the new 
barracks in the town, only three times as big. 

The grand staircase was copied from the Catacombs at 
Rome. 

The back staircase from the Tajmahal at Agra. 
This was built by Sir John's great-great-great-uncle , who 
won, in Lord Clive's Indian Wars , plenty of money, 
plenty of wounds, and no mme taste than his betters. 

The cellars were copied from the caves of Elephanta. 

The offices from the Pavilion at Brighton. 

And the rest from nothing in heaven, dr earth, or 
under the earth. 

So that Harthover House was a great puzzle to 
antiquarians, and a thorough Naboth’s vineyard to 


20 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


critics, and architects, and all persons who like 
meddling with other men’s business, and spending 
other men’s money. So they were all setting upon 
poor Sir John, year after year, and trying to talk him 
into spending a hundred thousand pounds or so, in 
building, to please them and not himself. But he 
always put them off, like a canny North- countryman 
as he was. One wanted him to build a Gothic house, 
but he said he was no Goth ; and another to build an 
Elizabethan, but he said he lived under good Queen 
Victoria, and not good Queen Bess; and another was 
bold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but 
he said he lived inside it, and not outside ; and 
another, that there was no unity in it, but he said that 
that was just why he liked the old place. For he 
liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and 
Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon 
the place, each after his own taste ; and he had no 
more notion of disturbing his ancestors’ work than of 
disturbing their graves. For now the house looked 
like a real live house, that had a history, and had 
grown and grown as the world grew ; and that it was 
only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own 
grandfather was, who would change it for some spick 
and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which 
looked as if it had been all spawned in a night, as 
mushrooms are. From which you may collect (if you 
have wit enough) that Sir John was a very sound- 
headed, sound-hearted squire, and just the man to keep 


r 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


21 



the country side in order, and show good sport with 
his hounds. 

But Tom and his master did not go in through the 
great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, 
but round the back way, and a very long way round it 
was ; and into a little back-door, where the ash-boy let 
them in, yawning horribly ; and then in a passage the 
housekeeper met them, in such a flowered chintz 
dressing- gown, 
that Tom mis- 
took her for My 
Lady herself, and 
she gave Grimes 
solemn orders 
about “ You will 
take care of this, 
and take care of 
that,” as if he was 
going up the chim- 
neys, and not 
Tom. And Grimes 
listened, and said 
every now and 
then, under Jiis 
voice, “ You’ll 
mind that, you 
little beggar ? ” 


and Tom did mind, all at least that he could. And 
then the housekeeper turned them into a grand room, 


22 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAl*. 


all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade 
them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice ; and so 
after a whimper or two, and a kick from his master, 
into the grate Tom went, and up the chimney, while a 
housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture ; 



to whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous 
compliments, but met with very slight encouragement 
in return. 

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say ; but 
he swept so many that he got quite tired, and puzzled 
too, for they were not like the town flues to which he 
was accustomed, but such as you would find — if you 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


23 


would only get up them and look, which perhaps you 
would not like to do — in old country-houses, large and 
crooked chimneys, which had been altered again and 
again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as 
Professor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom 
fairly lost his way in them ; not that he cared much 
for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was 
as much at home in a chimney as a mole is under- 
ground ; but at last, coming down as he thought the 
right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and 
found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room 
the like of which he had never seen before. 

Tom had never seen the like. He had never been 
in gentlefolks’ rooms but when the carpets were all up, 
and the curtains down, and the furniture huddled 
together under a cloth, and the pictures covered with 
aprons and dusters ; and he had often enough wondered 
what the rooms were like when they were all ready for 
the quality to sit in. And now he saw, and he thought 
the sight very pretty. 

The room was all dressed in white, — white window- 
curtains, white bed-curtains, white furniture, and white 
walls, with just a few lines of pink here and there. 
The carpet was all over gay little flowers ; and the 
walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which 
amused Tom very much. There were pictures of 
ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs. 
The horses he liked ; but the dogs he did not care for 
much, for there were no bull-dogs among them, not 


24 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


even a terrier. But the two pictures which took his 
fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with 
little children and their mothers round him, who was 
laying his hand upon the children’s heads. That was 
a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to hang in a lady’s 
room. For he could see that it was a lady’s room by 
the dresses which lay about. 

The other picture was that of a man nailed to a 
cross, which surprised Tom much. He fancied that 
he had seen something like it in a shop-window. But 
why was it there ? “ Poor man,” thought Tom, “ and 

he looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady 
have such a sad picture as that in her room ? Perhaps 
it was some kinsman of hers, who had been murdered 
by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there 
for a remembrance.” And Tom felt sad, and awed, 
and turned to look at something else. 

The next thing he saw, and that too puzzled him, 
was a washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap 
and brushes, and towels, and a large bath full of clean 
water — what a heap of things all for washing ! “ She 

must be a very dirty lady,” thought Tom, “by my 
master’s rule, to want as much scrubbing as all that. 
But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out of 
the way so well afterwards, for I don’t see a speck 
about the room, not even on the very towels.” 

And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that 
dirty lady, and held his breath with astonishment. 

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow- 


i A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 25 

white pillow, lay the most beautiful little girl that Tom 
had ever seen. Her cheeks were almost as white as 
the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread 
all about over the bed. She might have been as old 
as Tom, or maybe a year or two older ; but Tom did 
not think of that. He thought only of her delicate 



skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was 
a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen 
in the shops. But when he saw her breathe, he made 
up his mind that she was alive, and stood staring at 
her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven. 

No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have 
been dirty, thought Tom to himself. And then he 
thought, “ And are all people like that when they are 


26 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


washed ? ” And he looked at his own wrist, and tried 
to rub the soot off, and wondered whether it ever would 
come off. “ Certainly I should look much prettier 
then, if I grew at all like her.” 

And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close 
to him, a little ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared 
eyes and grinning white teeth. He turned on it 
angrily. What did such a little black ape want in 
that sweet young lady’s room ? And behold, it was 
himself, reflected in a great mirror the like of which 
Tom had never seen before. 

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out 
that he was dirty; and burst into tears with shame 
and anger ; and turned to sneak up the chimney again 
and hide ; and upset the fender and threw the fire- 
irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles 
tied to ten thousand mad dogs’ tails. 

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, 
seeing Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock. In 
rushed a stout old nurse from the next room, and seeing 
Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to 
rob, plunder, destroy, and burn ; and dashed at him, 
as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught him 
by the jacket. 

But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a 
policeman’s hands many a time, and out of them too, 
what is more ; and he would have been ashamed to face 
his friends for ever if he had been stupid enough to 
be caught by an old woman ; so he doubled under the 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


27 


good lady’s arm, across the room, and out of the window 
in a moment. 

He did not need to drop out, though he would have 
done so bravely enough. Nor even to let himself 
down a spout, which would have been an old game to 
him; for once he got up by a spout to the church 
roof, he said to take jackdaws’ eggs, but the policeman 
said to steal lead ; and, when he was seen on high, sat 



there till the sun got too hot, and came down by 
another spout, leaving the policemen to go back to the 
stationhouse and eat their dinners. 

But all under the window spread a tree, with great 
leaves and sweet white flowers, almost as big as his 
head. It was magnolia, I suppose ; but Tom knew 
nothing about that, and cared less ; for down the tree 
he went, like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and 
over the iron railings, and up the park towards the 


28 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder and fire 
at the window. 

The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw 
down his scythe ; caught his leg in it, and cut his shin 
open, whereby he kept his bed for a week ; but in his 
hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom. 
The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn between 
her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all the cream ; 



and yet she jumped up, and gave chase to Tom. A 
groom cleaning Sir John’s hack at the stables let him 
go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five 
minutes ; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. 
Grimes upset the soot-sack in the new-gravelled yard, 
and spoilt it all utterly ; but he ran out and gave chase 
to Tom. The old steward opened the park-gate in 
such a hurry, that he hung up his pony’s chin upon 
the spikes, and, for aught I know, it hangs there still; 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


29 


but he jumped off, and gave chase to Tom. The 
ploughman left his horses at the headland, and one 
jumped over the fence, and pulled the other into the 
ditch, plough and all ; but he ran on, and gave chase 
to Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of a 
trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; but 
he jumped up, and ran after Tom ; and considering 
what he said, and how he looked, I should have been 



sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked 
out of his study window (for he was an early old 
gentleman) and up at the nurse, and a marten dropped 
mud in his eye, so that he had at last to send for the 
doctor; and yet he ran out, and gave chase to Tom. 
The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to 
beg, — she must have got round by some byway, — but 
she threw away her bundle, and gave chase to Tom 
likewise. Only my Lady did not give chase ; for when 


30 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAl*. 


she had put her head out of the window, her night- wig 
fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady’s- 
maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite 
put her out of the running, so that she came in 
nowhere, and is consequently not placed. 

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place — 
not even when the fox was killed in the conservatory, 



among acres of broken glass, and tons of smashed 
flower-pots — such a noise, row, hubbub, babel,, shindy, 
hullabaloo, stramash, charivari, and total contempt of 
dignity, repose, and order, as that day, when Grimes, 
gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Sir John, the 
steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irish- 
woman, all ran up the park, shouting “ Stop thief,” in 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


31 


the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds’ 
worth of jewels in his empty pockets ; and the very 
magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and 
screaming, as if he were a hunted fox, beginning to 
droop his brush. 

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park 
with his little bare feet, like a small black gorilla 
fleeing to the forest. Alas for him ! there was no big 



father gorilla therein to take his part — to scratch out 
the gardener’s inside with one paw, toss the dairymaid 
into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir John’s head 
with a third, while he cracked the keeper’s skull with 
his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a 
paving-stone. 

However, Tom did not remember ever having had a 
father ; so he did not look for one, and expected to 
have to take care of himself ; while as for running, he 


32 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage- 
coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar- 
end, and turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten 
times following, which is more than you can do. Where- 
fore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him ; 
and we will hope that they did not catch him at all. 

Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had never 
been in a wood in his life ; but he was sharp enough 



to know that he might hide in a bush, or swarm up a 
tree, and, altogether, had more chance there than in 
the open. If he had not known that, he would have 
been foolisher than a mouse or a minnow. 

But when he got into the wood, he found it a very 
different sort of place from what he had fancied. He 
pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons, and found 
himself at once caught in a trap. The boughs laid 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


33 


hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and 
his stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though 
that was no great loss, for he could not see at best a 
yard before his nose) ; and when he got through the 
rhododendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled 
him over, and cut his poor little fingers afterwards 
most spitefully ; the birches birched him as soundly as 



if he had been a nobleman at Eton, and over the face 
too (which is not fair swishing, as all brave boys will 
agree) ; and the lawyers tripped him up, and tore his 
shins as if they had sharks’ teeth — which lawyers are 
likely enough to have. 

“ 1 must get out of this,” thought Tom, “ or I shall 
stay here till somebody comes to help me — which is 
just what I don’t want.” 

But how to get out was the difficult matter. And 


34 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


indeed I don’t think he would ever have got out at 
all, but have stayed there till the cock-robins covered 
him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run his head 
against a wall. 



Now running your head against a wall is not 
pleasant, especially if it is a loose wall, with the stones 
all set on edge, and a sharp cornered one hits you 
between the eyes and makes you see all manner of 
beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, certainly ; 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


35 


but unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth 
part of a split second, and the pain which comes after 
them does not. And so Tom hurt his head ; but he 
was a brave boy, and did not mind that a penny. He 
guessed that over the wall the cover would end ; and 
up it he went, aud over like a squirrel. 

And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, 
which the country folk called Harthover Fell — heather 
and bog and rock, stretching away and up, up to the 
very sky. 

Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow — as cunning 
as an old Exmoor stag. Why not ? Though he was 
but ten years old, he had lived longer than most stags, 
and had more wits to start with into the bargain. 

He knew as well as a stag that if he backed he 
might throw the hounds out. So the first thing he 
did when he was over the wall was to make the neatest 
double sharp to his right, and run along under the 
wall for nearly half a mile. 

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the stew- 
ard, and the gardener, and the ploughman, and the 
dairymaid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went on 
ahead half a mile in the very opposite direction, and 
inside the wall, leaving him a mile off on the outside ; 
while Tom heard their shouts die away in the woods 
and chuckled to himself merrily. 

At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to 
the bottom of it, and then he turned bravely away 
from the wall and up the moor ; for he knew that he 


36 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


had put a hill between him and his enemies, and could 
go on without their seeing him. 

But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen 
which way Tom went. She had kept ahead of every 
one the whole time ; and yet she neither walked nor 
ran. She went along quite smoothly and gracefully, 
while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that 
you could not see which was foremost ; till every one 
asked the other who the strange woman was ; and all 
agreed, for want of anything better to say, that she 
must be in league with Tom. 

But when she came to the plantation, they lost 
sight of her; and they could do no less. For she 
went quietly over the wall after Tom, and followed 
him wherever he went. Sir John and the rest saw no 
more of her ; and out of sight was out of mind. 

And now Tom was right away into the heather, 
over just such a moor as those in which you have been 
bred, except that there were rocks and stones lying 
about everywhere, and that, instead of the moor 
growing flat as he went upwards, it grew more and 
more broken and hilly, but not so rough but that little 
Tom could jog along well enough, and find time, too, 
to stare about at the strange place, which was like a 
new world to him. 

He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses 
marked on their backs, who sat in the middle of their 
webs, and when they saw Tom coming, shook them so 
fast that they became invisible. Then he saw lizards, 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


37 


brown and gray and green, and thought they were 
snakes, and would sting him ; but they were as much 
frightened as he, and shot away into the heath. And 
then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight — a great 
brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her 
brush, and round her four or five smutty little cubs, 



the funniest fellows Tom ever saw. She lay on her 
back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and 
head and tail in the bright sunshine ; and the cubs 
jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled her 
paws, and lugged her about by the tail ; and she 
seemed to enjoy it mightily. But one selfish little 
fellow stole away from the rest to a dead crow close 


38 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it was nearly 
as big as he was. Whereat all his little brothers set 
off after him in full cry, and saw Tom ; and then all 
ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Yixen, and caught one 
up in her mouth, and the rest toddled after her, and 
into a dark crack in the rocks ; and there was an end 
of the show. 

And next he had a fright ; for, as he scrambled up 
a sandy brow — whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick — some- 
thing went off in his face, with a most horrid noise. 
He thought the ground had blown up, and the end of 
the world come. 

And when he opened his eyes (for he shut them 
very tight) it was only an old cock-grouse, who had 
been washing himself in sand, like an Arab, for want 
of water ; and who, when Tom had all but trodden on 
him, jumped up with a noise like the express train, 
leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves, 
like an old coward, and went off, screaming “ Cur-ru-u- 
uck, cur-ru-u-uck — murder, thieves, fire — cur-u-uck- 
cock-kick — the end of the world is come — kick-kick- 
cock-kick.” He was always fancying that the end of 
the world was come, when anything happened which 
was farther off than the end of his own nose. But the 
end of the world was not come, any more than the 
twelfth of August was; though the old grouse-cock 
was quite certain of it. 

So the old grouse came back to his wife and family 
an hour afterwards, and said solemnly, “Cock-cock- 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


39 


kick ; my dears, the end of the world is not quite 
come ; but I assure you it is coming the day after to- 
morrow — cock.” But his wife ha^' heard that so often 
that she knew all about it, and A little more. And, 
besides, she was the mother of i family, and had seven 
little poults to wash and feed every day; and that 



made her very practical, and a little sharp-tempered ; 
so all she answered was: “Kick-kick-kick — go and 
catch spiders, go and catch spiders — kick.” 

So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why ; but 
he liked the great wide strange place, and the cool 
fresh bracing air. But he went more and more slowly 
as he got higher up the hill ; for now the ground grew 
very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy 


40 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, 
just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks between 
the stones and ledges, filled with ferns ; so he had to 
hop from stone to stone, and now and then he slipped 
in between, and hurt his little bare toes, though they 
were tolerably tough ones ; but still he would go on 
and up, he could not tell why. 

What would Tom have said if he had seen, walking 
over the moor behind him, the very same Irishwoman 
who had taken his part upon the road ? But whether 
it was that he looked too little behind him, or whether 
it was that she kept out of sight behind the rocks and 
knolls, he never saw her, though she saw him. 

And now he began to get a little hungry, and very 
thirsty ; for he had run a long way, and the sun had 
risen high in heaven, and the rock was as hot as an 
oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does over 
a limekiln, till everything round seemed quivering and 
melting in the glare. 

But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and still 
less to drink. 

The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries ; 
but they were only in flower yet, for it was June. 
And as for water, who can find that on the top of a 
limestone rock ? Now and then he passed by a deep 
dark swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it 
was the chimney of some dwarfs house underground ; 
and more than once, as he passed, he could hear water 
falling, trickling, tinkling, many many feet below. 


I 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


41 


How he longed to get down to it, and cool his poor 
baked lips ! But, brave little chimney-sweep as he 
was, he dared not climb down such chimneys as those. 

So he went on and on, till his head spun round 
with the heat, and he thought he heard church-bells 
ringing, a long way off. 

“ Ah ! ” he thought, “ where there is a church there 
will be houses and people ; and, perhaps; some one 
will give me a bit and a sup/’ So he set off again, to 
look for the church ; for he was sure that he heard 
the bells quite plain. 

And in a minute more, when he looked round, he 
stopped again, and said, “ Why, what a big place the 
world is ! ” 

And so it was ; for, from the top of the mountain 
he could see — what could he not see ? 

Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the 
dark woods, and the shining salmon river ; and on his 
left, far below, was the town, and the smoking chimneys 
of the collieries ; and far, far away, the river widened 
to the shining sea; and little white specks, which 
were ships, lay on its bosom. Before him lay, spread 
out like a map, great plains, and farms, and villages, 
amid dark knots of trees. They all seemed at his 
very feet ; but he had sense to see that they were long 
miles away. 

And to his right rose moor after moor, hill after 
hill, till they faded away, blue into blue sky. But 
between him and those moors, and really at his very 


42 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


feet, lay something, to which, as soon as Torn saw it, 
he determined to go, for that was the place for him. 

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, 
and filled with wood ; but through the wood, hundreds 
of feet below him, he could see a clear stream glance. 
Oh, if he could but get down to that stream ! Then, 
by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and 
a little garden set out in squares and beds. And 
there was a tiny little red thing moving in the garden, 
no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked down, he saw 
that it was a woman in a red petticoat. Ah ! perhaps 
she would give him something to eat. And there 
were the church-bells ringing again. Surely there 
must be a village down there. Well, nobody would 
know him, or what had happened at the Place. The 
news could not have got there yet, even if Sir John 
had set all the policemen in the county after him ; 
and he could get down there in five minutes. 

Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not having 
got thither ; for he had come without knowing it, the 
best part of ten miles from Harthover ; but he was wrong 
about getting down in five minutes, for the cottage was 
more than a mile off, and a good thousand feet below. 

However, down he went, like a brave little man as 
he was, though he was very footsore, and tired, and 
hungry, and thirsty ; while the church-bells rang so 
loud, he began to think that they must be inside his 
own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below ; 
and this was the song which it sang : — 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


43 



By laughing shallow , and dreaming pool ; 

Cool and clear , cool and clear, 

By shining shingle, and foaming wear ; 


44 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. I 


Under the crag where the ouzel sings, 

And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, 
Undefined, for the undefiled ; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 


Dank and foul, dank and foul, 

By the smoky town in its murky cowl; 

Foul and dank, foul and dank, 

By wharf and sewer and slimy bank ; 

Darker and darker the farther I go, 

Baser and baser the richer I grow ; 

Who dare sport with the sin-defiled ? 

Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. 


Strong and free, strong and free, 

The floodgates are open, away to the sea, 

Free and strong, free and strong, 

Cleansing my streams as I hurry along, 

To the golden sands, and the leaping bar, 

And the taintless tide that awaits me afar. 

As I lose myself in the infinite main, 

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. 
Undefiled, for the undefiled; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 

So Tom went down ; and all the while he never 
saw the Irishwoman going down behind him. 



‘And is there care in heaven ? and is there love 
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base 
That may compassion of their evils move ? 

There is : — else much more wretched were the case 
Of men than beasts : But oh ! the exceeding grace 
Of Highest God that loves His creatures so, 

And all His works with mercy doth embrace, 

That blessed Angels He sends to and fro, 

To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe ! ” 

Spenser. 


CHAPTER II 



MILE off, and a 
thousand feet 
N down. 
So Tom 
O found it; 
though it seemed 
as if he could have 
chucked a pebble 
on to the back of 
the woman in the 
red petticoat who 
was weeding in the 
garden, or even 
across the dale to 
the rocks beyond. 
Eor the bottom of 
the valley was just one field broad, and on the other 
side ran the stream ; and above it, gray crag, gray 
down, gray stair, gray moor walled up to heaven. 


48 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


A quiet, silent, rich, happy place ; a narrow crack 
cut deep into the earth; so deep, and so out of the 
way, that the bad bogies can hardly find it out. The 
name of the place is Yendale; and if you want to see 
it for yourself, you must go up into the High Craven, 
and search from Bolland Forest north by Ingleborougk 
to the Nine Standards and Cross Fell ; and if you have 
not found it, you must turn south, and search the Lake 
Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the sea; and then, 
if you have not found it, you must go northward 
again by merry Carlisle, and search the Cheviots all 
across, from Annan Water to Berwick Law ; and then, 
whether you have found Yendale or not, you will have 
found such a country, and such a people, as ought to 
make you proud of being a British boy. 

So Tom went to go down ; and first he went down 
three hundred feet of steep heather, mixed up with 
loose brown gritstone, as rough as a file ; which was 
not pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, 
stump, jump, down the steep. And still he thought 
he could throw a stone into the garden. 

Then he went down three hundred feet of lime- 
stone terraces, one below the other, as straight as if a 
carpenter had ruled them with his ruler and then cut 
them out with his chisel. There was no heath there, 
but — 

First, a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest 
flowers, rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, 
and all sorts of sweet herbs. 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


49 


Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers. 

Then bump down a one-foot step. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty 
yards, as steep as the house -roof, where he had to 
slide down on his dear little tail. 

Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and 
there he had to stop himself, and crawl along the edge 
to find a crack ; for if he had rolled over, he would 
have rolled right into the old woman’s garden, and 
frightened her out of her wits. 

Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, full 
of green-stalked fern, such as hangs in the basket in 
the drawing-room, and had crawled down through it, 
with knees and elbows, as he would down a chimney, 
there was another grass slope, and another step, and so 
on, till — oh, dear me ! I wish it was all over ; and 
so did he. And yet he thought he could throw a 
stone into the old woman’s garden. 

At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs ; white- 
beam with its great silver-backed leaves, and mountain- 
ash, and oak ; and below them cliff and crag, cliff and 
crag, with great beds of crown-ferns and wood-sedge; 
while through the shrubs he could see the stream 
sparkling, and hear it murmur on the white pebbles. 
He did not know that it was three hundred feet below. 

You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking 
down : but Tom was not. He was a brave little 
chimney-sweep; and when he found himself on the 
E 


50 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying 
for his baba (though he never had had any baba to 
cry for), he said, “ Ah, this will just suit me ! ” though 
he was very tired; and down he went, by stock and 
stone, sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had 
been born a jolly little black ape, with four hands 
instead of two. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman 
coming down behind him. 

But he was getting terribly tired now. The 
burning sun on the fells had sucked him up ; but the 
damp heat of the woody crag sucked him up still 
more ; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his 
fingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he 
had been for a whole year. But, of course, he dirtied 
everything terribly as he went. There has been a 
great black smudge all down the crag ever since. And 
there have been more black beetles in Yendale since 
than ever were known before ; all, of course, owing to 
Tom’s having blacked the original papa of them all, 
just as he was setting off to be married, with a sky- 
blue coat and scarlet leggings, as smart as a gardener’s 
dog with a polyanthus in his mouth. 

At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was 
not the bottom — as people usually find when they are 
coming down a mountain. For at the foot of the crag 
were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of every size 
from that of your head to that of a stage - waggon, 
with holes between them full of sweet heath-fern ; and 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


51 


before Tom got through them, he was out in the bright 
sunshine again; and then he felt, once for all and 
suddenly, as people generally do, that he was b-e-a-t, 
beat. 

You must expect to be beat a few times in your 
life, little man, if you live such a life as a man ought 
to live, let you be as strong and healthy as you may : 
and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feeling. 
I hope that that day you may have a stout staunch 
friend by you who is not beat; for, if you have not, 
you had best lie where you are, and wait for better 
times, as poor Tom did. 

He could not get on. The sun was burning, and 
yet he felt chill all over. He was quite empty, and 
yet he felt quite sick. There was but two hundred 
yards of smooth pasture between him and the cottage, 
and yet he could not walk down it. He could hear 
the stream murmuring only one field beyond it, and 
yet it seemed to him as if it was a hundred miles off. 

He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over 
him, and the flies settled on his nose. I don’t know 
when he would have got up again, if the gnats and the 
midges had not taken compassion on him. But the 
gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and the 
midges nibbled so at his hands and face wherever they 
could find a place free from soot, that at last he woke 
up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, and 
into a narrow road, and up to the cottage-door. 

And a neat pretty cottage it was, with clipped yew 


52 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAV. 


hedges all round the garden, and yews inside too, cut 
into peacocks and trumpets and teapots and all kinds 
of queer shapes. And out of the open door came a 
noise like that of the frogs on the Great- A, when they 
know that it is going to he scorching hot to-morrow — 
and how they know that I don’t know, and you don’t 
know, and nobody knows. 

He came slowly up to the open door, which was 
all hung round with clematis and roses ; and then 
peeped in, half afraid. 

And there sat by the empty fireplace, which was 
filled with a pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman 
that ever was seen, in her red petticoat, and short 
dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a black 
silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin. At her 
feet sat the grandfather of all the cats ; and opposite 
her sat, on two benches, twelve or fourteen neat, rosy, 
chubby little children, learning their Chris-cross-row ; 
and gabble enough they made about it. 

Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean 
stone floor, and curious old prints on the walls, and an 
old black oak sideboard full of bright pewter and brass 
dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, which began 
shouting as soon as Tom appeared: not that it was 
frightened at Tom, but that it was just eleven o’clock. 

All the children started at Tom’s dirty black 
figure, — the girls began to cry, and the boys began to 
laugh, and all pointed at him rudely enough ; but Tom 
was too tired to care for that. 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


53 


“ What art thou, and what dost want ? ” cried the 
old dame. “A chimney-sweep! Away with thee! 
I’ll have no sweeps here.” 

“ Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint. 

“Water? There’s plenty i’ the beck,” she said, 
quite sharply. 

But I can’t get there ; I’m most clemmed with 
hunger and drought.” And Tom sank down upon the 
door-step, and laid his head against the post. 

And the old dame looked at him through her 
spectacles one minute, and two, and three ; and then 
she said, “ He’s sick ; and a bairn’s a bairn, sweep or 
none.” 

“Water,” said Tom. 

“God forgive me!” and she put by her spectacles, 
and rose, and came to Tom. “Water’s bad for thee ; 
I’ll give thee milk.” And she toddled off into the 
next room, and brought a cup of milk arid a bit of 
bread. 

Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then 
looked up, revived. 

“ Where didst come from ? ” said the dame. 

“ Over Fell, there,” said Tom, and pointed up into 
the sky. 

“ Over Harthover ? and down Lewth waite Crag ? 
Art sure thou art not lying ? ” 

“ Why should I ? ” said Tom, and leant his head 
against the post. 

“ And how got ye up there ? ” 


54 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ I came over from the Place ; ” and Tom was so 
tired and desperate he had no heart or time to think 
of a story, so he told all the truth in a few words. 

“ Bless thy little heart ! And thou hast not been 
stealing, then ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Bless thy little heart ! and I’ll warrant not. 
Why, God’s guided the bairn, because he was innocent ! 
Away from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and 
down Lewthwaite Crag ! Who ever heard the like, 
if God hadn’t led him ? Why dost not eat thy 
bread ? ” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ It’s good enough, for I made it myself.” 

“ I can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his 
knees, and then asked — 

“ Is it Sunday ? ” 

“ No, then ; why should it be ? ” 

“ Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.” 

“ Bless thy pretty heart ! The bairn’s sick. Come 
wi’ me, and I’ll hap thee up somewhere. If thou 
wert a hit cleaner I’d put thee in my own bed, for 
the Lord’s sake. But come along here.” 

But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired 
and giddy that she had to help him and lead him. 

She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay 
and an old rug, and hade him sleep off his walk, and 
she would come to him when school was over, in an 
hour’s time. 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


55 


And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall 
fast asleep at once. 

But Tom did not fall asleep. 

Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about 
in the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he 
longed to get into the river and cool himself; and 
then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the 
little white lady crying to him, “ Oh, you’re so dirty ; 
go and be washed;” and then that he heard the Irish- 
woman saying, “ Those that wish to he clean, clean 
they will he.” And then he heard the church-bells 
ring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must 
be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said ; 
and he would go to church, and see what a church 
was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor 
little fellow, in all his life. But the people would 
never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like that. 
He must go to the river and wash first. And he said 
out loud again and again, though being half asleep he 
did not know it, “ I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the 
outhouse on the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, 
over the road, with the stream just before him, saying 
continually, “ I must be clean, I must be clean.” He 
had got there on his own legs, between sleep and 
awake, as children will often get out of bed, and go 
about the room, when they are not quite well. But 
he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank 
of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked 


56 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble 
at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver 
trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black 
face ; and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool, 
cool, cool ; and he said, “ I will be a fish ; I will swim 
in the water ; I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

So he pulled off* all his clothes in such haste that 
he tore some of them, which was easy enough with such 
ragged old things. And he put his poor hot sore feet 
into the water ; and then his legs ; and the farther he 
went in, the more the church-bells rang in his head. 

“ Ah,” said Tom, “ I must be quick and wash 
myself ; the bells are ringing quite loud now ; and 
they will stop soon, and then the door will be shut, 
and I shall never be able to get in at all.” 

Tom was mistaken : for in England the church 
doors are left open all service time, for everybody who 
likes to come in, Churchman or Dissenter; ay, even if 
he were a Turk or a Heathen ; and if any man dared 
to turn him out, as long as he behaved quietly, the 
good old English law would punish that man, as he 
deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out of 
God’s house, which belongs to all alike. But Tom 
did not know that, any more than he knew a great 
deal more which people ought to know. 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman, 
not behind him this time, but before. 

For just before he came to the river side, she had 
stept down into the cool clear water ; and her shawl 


57 


11 A fairy tale for a land-baby 

and her petticoat floated off her, and the green water- 
weeds floated round her sides, and the white water- 



lilies floated round her head, and the fairies of the 
stream came up from the bottom and bore her away 


58 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


and down upon their arms ; for she was the Queen of 
them all ; and perhaps of more besides. 

“ Where have you been ? ” they asked her. 

“ I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and 
whispering sweet dreams into their ears ; opening 
cottage casements, to let out the stifling air; coax- 
ing little children away from glitters, and foul pools 
where fever breeds ; turning women from the gin- 
shop door, and staying men’s hands as they were going 
to strike their wives ; doing all I can to help those 
who will not help themselves : and little enough that 
is, and weary work for me. But I have brought you 
a new little brother, and watched him safe all the way 
here.’’ 

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought 
that they had a little brother coming. 

“ But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know 
that you are here. He is but a savage now, and like 
the beasts which perish ; and from the beasts which 
perish he must learn. So you must not play with 
him, or speak to him, or let him see you : but only 
keep him from being harmed.” 

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not 
play with their new brother, but they always did what 
they were told. 

And their Queen floated away down the river; 
and whither she went, thither she came. But all this 
Tom, of course, never saw or heard : and perhaps if he 
had it would have made little difference in the story ; 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


59 


for he was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be 
clean for once, that he tumbled himself as quick as he 
could into the clear cool stream. 

And he had not been in it two minutes before 
he fell fast asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest 
sleep that ever he had in his life ; and he dreamt 
about the green meadows by which he had walked 
that morning, and the tall elm-trees, and the sleeping 
cows ; and after that he dreamt of nothing at all. 

The reason of his falling into such a delightful 
sleep is very simple ; and yet hardly any one has 
found it out. It was merely that the fairies took 
him. 

Some people think that there are no fairies. 
Cousin Cram child tells little folks so in his Conversa- 
tions. Well, perhaps there are none — in Boston, 
U.S., where he was raised. There are only a clumsy 
lot of spirits there, who can’t make people hear with- 
out thumping on the table : but they get their living 
thereby, and I suppose that is all they want. And 
Aunt Agitate, in her Arguments on political economy, 
says there are none. Well, perhaps there are none — 
in her political economy. But it is a wide world, my 
little man — and thank Heaven for it, for else, between 
crinolines and theories, some of us would get squashed 
— and plenty of room in it for fairies, without people 
seeing them ; unless, of course, they look in the right 
place. The most wonderful and the strongest things 
in the world, you know, are just the things which no 


60 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


one can see. There is life in you ; and it is the life 
in you which makes you grow, and move, and think : 
and yet you can’t see it. And there is steam in a 
steam-engine ; and that is what makes it move : and 
yet you can’t see it ; and so there may be fairies in 
the world, and they may be just what makes the world 
go round to the old tune of 

“ C'est V amour, V amour, V amour 
Qui fait la monde a la ronde 

and yet no one may be 
able to see them except 
those whose hearts are 
going round to that same 
tune. At all events, we 
will make believe that there 
are fairies in the world. It 
will not be the last time 
by many a one that we 
shall have to make believe. 
And yet, after all, there is no need for that. There 
must be fairies ; for this is a fairy tale : and how can 
one have a fairy tale if there are no fairies ? 

You don’t see the logic of that ? Perhaps not. 
Then please not to see the logic of a great many 
arguments exactly like it, which you will hear before 
your beard is gray. 

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when 
school was over, to look at Tom : but there was no 



II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


61 


Tom there. She looked about for his footprints ; but 
the ground was so hard that there was no slot, as they 
say in dear old North Devon. And if you grow up 
to be a brave healthy man, you may know some day 
what no slot means, and know too, I hope, what a slot 
does mean — a broad slot, with blunt claws, which 
makes a man put out his cigar, and set his teeth, 
and tighten his girths, when he sees it; and what 
his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, 
and points ; and see something worth seeing between 
Haddon Wood and Countisbury Cliff', with good Mr. 
Palk Collyns to show you the way, and mend your 
bones as fast as you smash them. Only when that 
jolly day comes, please don’t break your neck ; stogged 
in a mire you never will be, I trust; for you are a 
heath-cropper bred and born. 

So the old dame went in again quite sulky, thinking 
that little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and 
shammed ill, and then run away again. 

But she altered her mind the next day. For, 
when Sir John and the rest of them had run them- 
selves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back 
again, looking very foolish. 

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John 
heard more of the story from the nurse ; and more 
foolish still, again, when they heard the whole story 
from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white. All she had 
seen was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying 
and sobbing, and going to get up the chimney again. 


62 


THE WATER-BABIES 


OHAP. 


Of course, she was very much frightened : and no 
wonder. But that was all. The boy had taken 
nothing in the room ; by the mark of his little sooty 
feet, they could see that he had never been off the 
hearthrug till the nurse caught hold of him. It was 
all a mistake. 

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised 
him five shillings if he would bring the boy quietly 
up to him, without beating him, that he might be sure 
of the truth. For he took for granted, and Grimes 
too, that Tom had made his way home. 

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening; 
and he went to the police-office, to tell them to look 
out for the boy. But no Tom was heard of. As for 
his having gone over those great fells to Yendale, they 
no more dreamed of that than of his having gone to 
the moon. 

So Mr. Grimes came up to Harthover next day 
with a very sour face; but when he got there, Sir 
J ohn was over the hills and far away ; and Mr. 
Grimes had to sit in the outer servants’ hall all day, 
and drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows ; and 
they were washed away long before Sir John came 
back. 

For good Sir John had slept very badly that night ; 
and he said to his lady, “ My dear, the boy must have 
got over into the grouse-moors, and lost himself ; and 
he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little lad. 
But I know what I will do.” 


ir A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND- BABY 63 

So, at five the next morning up he got, and into 
his bath, and into his shooting-jacket and gaiters, and 
into the stableyard, like a fine old English gentleman, 
with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as 
a table, and a back as broad as a bullock’s; and 
bade them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper 



to come on his pony, and the huntsman, and the 
first whip, and the second whip, and the under- 
keeper with the bloodhound in a leash — a great dog 
as tall as a calf, of the colour of a gravel -walk, 
with mahogany ears and nose, and a throat like a 
cliurch-bell. They took him up to the place where 
Tom had gone into the wood ; and there the hound 


64 


THE WATER- BABIES 


CHAP. 


lifted up his mighty voice, and told them all he 
knew. 

Then he took them to the place where Tom had 
climbed the wall ; and they shoved it down, and all 
got through. 

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, 
and over the fells, step by step, very slowly ; for the 
scent was a day old, you know, and very light from 
the heat and drought. But that was why cunning old 
Sir John started at five in the morning. 

And at last he came to the top of Lewthwaite 
Crag, and there he bayed, and looked up in their faces, 
as much as to say, “ I tell you he is gone down here ! ” 

They could hardly believe that Tom would have 
gone so far ; and when they looked at that awful cliff, 
they could never believe that he would have dared to 
face it. But if the dog said so, it must be true. 

“ Heaven forgive us ! ” said Sir John. “ If we find 
him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom.” 
And he slapped his great hand upon his great thigh, 
and said — 

“ Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, and see 
if that boy is alive ? Oh that I were twenty years 
younger, and I would go down myself ! ” And so he 
would have done, as well as any sweep in the county. 
Then he said — 

“ Twenty pounds to the man who brings me that 
boy alive ! ” and as was his way, what he said he 
meant. 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


65 


Now among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very 
little groom indeed; and he was the same who had 
ridden up the court, and told Tom to come to the 
Hall ; and he said — 

“ Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over 
Lewthwaite Crag, if it’s only for the poor boy’s sake. 
For he was as civil a spoken little chap as ever climbed 
a flue.” 

So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went : a very 
smart groom he was at the top, and a very shabby one 
at the bottom ; for he tore his gaiters, and he tore his 
breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces, 
and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what 
was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, which he prized 
very much, for it was gold, and he had won it in a 
raffle at Malton, and there was a figure at the top of 
it, of t’ould mare, noble old Beeswing herself, as natural 
as life ; so it was a really severe loss : but he never saw 
anything of Tom. 

And all the while Sir John and the rest were 
riding round, full three miles to the right, and back 
again, to get into Vendale, and to the foot of the 
crag. 

When they came to the old dame’s school, all the 
children came out to see. And the old dame came out 
too ; and when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very low, 
for she was a tenant of his. 

“ Well, dame, and how are you ? ” said Sir John. 

“ Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harth- 
F 


66 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


over,” says she — she didn’t call him Sir J ohn, but only 
Harthover, for that is the fashion in the North country 
— “and welcome into Vendale : but you’re no hunting 
the fox this time of the year ? ’* 

“ I am hunting, and strange game too,” said he. 

“Blessings on your heart, and what makes you 
look so sad the morn ? ” 

“ I’m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep, that 
is run away.” 

“ Oh, Harthover, Harthover,” says she, “ ye were 
always a just man and a merciful ; and ye’ll no harm 
the poor little lad if I give you tidings of him ? ” 

“ Not I, not I, dame. I’m afraid we hunted him 
out of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the 
hound has brought him to the top of Lewthwaite 
Crag, and ” 

Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without 
letting him finish his story. 

“ So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear ! 
Ah, first thoughts are best, and a body’s heart’ll guide 
them right, if they will but hearken to it.” And then 
she told Sir John all. 

“ Bring the dog here, and lay him on,” said Sir 
John, without another word, and he set his teeth very 
hard. 

And the dog opened at once ; and went away at 
the back of the cottage, over the road, and over the 
meadow, and through a bit of alder copse ; and there, 
upon an alder stump, they saw Tom’s clothes lying. 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


67 


And then they knew as much about it all as there was 
any need to know. 

And Tom ? 

Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this 
wonderful story. Tom, when he woke, for of course 
he woke — children always wake after they have slept 
exactly as long as is good for them — found himself 
swimming about in the stream, being about four inches, 
or — that I may be accurate — 3*87902 inches long, 
and having round the parotid region of his fauces a set 
of external gills (I hope you understand all the big 
words) just like those of a sucking eft, which he 
mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, found 
he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were 
part of himself, and best left alone. 

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water- 
baby. 

A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. 
Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story 
was written. There are a great many things in the 
world which you never heard of ; and a great many 
more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many 
things, too, which nobody will ever hear of, at least 
until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall 
be the measure of all things. 

“ But there are no such things as water-babies.” 

How do you know that ? Have you been there to 
see ? And if you had been there to see, and had seen 
none, that would not prove that there were none. If 


68 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood — as 
folks sometimes fear he never will — that does not 
prove that there are no such things as foxes. And as 
is Eversley Wood to all the woods in. England, so are 
the waters we know to all the waters in the world. 



And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, 
till they have seen no water-babies existing ; which is 
quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing w T ater- 
babies ; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps 
ever will do. 

“ But surely if there were water-babies, somebody 
would have caught one at least ? ” 

Well. How do you know that somebody has not ? 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


69 


“ But tlie^ would have put it into spirits, or into 
the Illustrated News , or perhaps cut it into two halves, 
poor dear little thing, and sent one to Professor Owen, 
and one to Professor Huxley, to see what they would 
each say about it.” 

Ah, my dear little man ! that does not follow at all, 
as you will see before the end of the story. 

“ But a water-baby is contrary to nature." 

Well, but, my dear little man, you must learn to 



talk about such things, wdien you grow older, in a very 
different way from that. You must not talk about 
“ ain’t ” and “ can’t ” when you speak of this great 
wonderful world round you, of which the wisest man 
knows only the very smallest corner, and is, as the 
great Sir Isaac Newton said, only a child picking up 
pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean. 

You must not say that this cannot be, or that 
that is contrary to nature. You do not know what 
Nature is, or what she can do ; and nobody knows ; 


70 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


not even Sir Roderick Murchison, or Professor Owen, 
or Professor Sedgwick, or Professor Huxley, or Mr. 
Darwin, or Professor Faraday, or Mr. Grove, or any 
other of the great men whom good boys are taught 
to respect. They are very wise men ; and you must 
listen respectfully to all they say : but even if they 
should say, which I am sure they never would, “ That 
cannot exist. That is contrary to nature,” you must 
wait a little, and see ; for perhaps even they may be 
wrong. It is only children who read Aunt Agitate’s 
Arguments, or Cousin Cramchild’s Conversations ; or 
lads who go to popular lectures, and see a man pointing 
at a few big ugly pictures on the wall, or making nasty 
smells with bottles and squirts, for an hour or two, 
and calling that anatomy or chemistry — who talk about 
“ cannot exist,” and “ contrary to nature.” Wise men 
are afraid to say that there is anything contrary 
to nature, except what is contrary to mathematical 
truth ; for two and two cannot make five, and two 
straight lines cannot join twice, and a part cannot 
be as great as the whole, and so on (at least, 
so it seems at present) : but the wiser men are, 
the less they talk about “ cannot.” That is a very 
rash, dangerous word, that “ cannot ” ; and if people 
use it too often, the Queen of all the Fairies, 
who makes the clouds thunder and the fleas bite, 
and takes just as much trouble about one as about 
the other, is apt to astonish them suddenly by 
showing them, that though they say she cannot, yet 


n A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 71 

she can, and what is more, will, whether they approve 
or not. 

And therefore it is, that there are dozens and 
hundreds of things in the world which we should 
certainly have said were contrary to nature, if we did 
not see them going on under our eyes all day long. 
If people had never seen little seeds grow into great 
plants and trees, of quite different shape from them- 
selves, and these trees again produce fresh seeds, to 
grow into fresh trees, they would have said, “ The thing 
cannot be ; it is contrary to nature.” And they would 
have been quite as right in saying so, as in saying 
that most other things cannot be. 

Or suppose again, that you had come, like M. Du 
Chaillu, a traveller from unknown parts ; and that no 
human being had ever seen or heard of an elephant. 
And suppose that you described him to people, and 
said, “ This is the shape, and plan, and anatomy of 
the beast, and of his feet, and of his trunk, and of 
his grinders, and of his tusks, though they are not 
tusks at all, but two fore teeth run mad ; and this is 
the section of his skull, more like a mushroom than a 
reasonable skull of a reasonable or unreasonable beast ; 
and so forth, and so forth ; and though the beast 
(which I assure you I have seen and shot) is first 
cousin to the little hairy coney of Scripture, second 
cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or fourteenth 
cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts, 
and can do everything save read, write, and cast 


72 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


accounts.” People would surely have said, “ Nonsense ; 
your elephant is contrary to nature ; ” and have thought 
you were telling stories — as the French thought of 
Le Vaillant when he came hack to Paris and said 
that he had shot a giraffe ; and as the king of the 
Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor, when 
he said that in his country water turned to marble, 
and rain fell as feathers. They would tell you, the 
more they knew of science, “ Your elephant is an 
impossible monster, contrary to the laws of comparative 
anatomy, as far as yet known.” To which you would 
answer the less, the more you thought. 

Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last 
twenty -five years, that a flying dragon was an im- 
possible monster ? And do we not now know that 
there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down 
the world ? People call them Pterodactyles : but that 
is only because they are ashamed to call them flying 
dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons 
could exist. 

The truth is, that folks’ fancy that such and such 
things cannot be, simply because they have not seen 
them, is worth no more than a savage’s fancy that 
there cannot be such a thing as a locomotive, because 
he never saw one running wild in the forest. Wise 
men know that their business is to examine what is, 
and not to settle what is not. They know that there 
are elephants; they know that there have been fly- 
ing dragons ; and the wiser they are, the less inclined 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


73 


they will be to say positively that there are no water- 
babies. 

hTo water-babies, indeed ? Why, wise men of old 
said that everything on earth had its double in the 
water ; and you may see that that is, if not quite true, 
still quite as true as most other theories which you 
are likely to hear for many a day. There are land- 
babies — then why not water -babies ? Are there not 
water-rats , water-flies , ivater -crickets, water-crabs, water- 
tortoises, water -scorpions, water-tigers and water-hogs, 
water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea- 
horses and sea- elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea- 
razors and sea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of 
plants, are there not water-grass, and water-crowfoot, 
water -milfoil, and so on, without end ? 

“ But all these things are only nicknames ; the 
water things are not really akin to the land things.” 

That’s not always true. They are, in millions of 
cases, not only of the same family, but actually the 
same individual creatures. Do not even you know that 
a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live 
under water till they change their skins, just as Tom 
changed his ? And if a water animal can continually 
change into a land animal, wiry should not a land 
animal sometimes change into a water animal ? Don’t 
be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild’s arguments, 
but stand up to him like a man, and answer him 
(quite respectfully, of course) thus : — 

If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water- 


74 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


babies, they must grow into water-men, ask him how 
he knows that they do not ? and then, how he knows 
that they must, any more than the Proteus of the 
Adelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt. 

If he says that it is too strange a transformation 
for a land -baby to turn into a water-baby, ask him 
if he ever heard of the transformation of Syllis, or’ 
the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M. 
Quatrefages says excellently well — “ Who would not 
exclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a 
reptile come out of the egg dropped by the hen in 
his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to 
an indefinite number of fishes and birds ? Yet the 
history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as that 
would be.” Ask him if he knows about all this ; and 
if he does not, tell him to go and look for himself; 
and advise him (very respectfully, of course) to settle 
no more what strange things cannot happen, till he 
has seen what strange things do happen every day. 

If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, 
change downwards into lower forms, ask him, who 
told him that water -babies were lower than land- 
babies ? But even if they were, does he know about 
the strange degradation of the common goose-barnacles, 
which one finds sticking on ships’ bottoms ; or the 
still stranger degradation of some cousins of theirs, of 
which one hardly likes to talk, so shocking and ugly 
it is ? 

And, lastly, if he says (as he most certainly will) 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


75 


that these transformations only take place in the lower 
animals, and not in the higher, say that that seems to 
little boys, and to some grown people, a very strange 
fancy. For if the changes of the lower animals are 
so wonderful, and so difficult to discover, why should 
not there be changes in the higher animals far more 
wonderful, and far more difficult to discover ? And 
may not man, the crown and flower of all things, 
undergo some change as much more wonderful than 
all the rest, as the Great Exhibition is more wonderful 
than a rabbit - burrow ? Let him answer that. And 
if he says (as he will) that not having seen such, a 
change in his experience, he is not hound to believe it, 
ask him respectfully, where his microscope has been ? 
Does not each of us, in coming into this world, go 
through a transformation just as wonderful as that of 
a sea -egg, or a butterfly? and do not reason and 
analogy, as well as Scripture, tell us that that trans- 
formation is not the last ? and that, though what we 
shall be, we know not, yet we are here but as the 
crawling caterpillar, and shall he hereafter as the perfect 
fly. The old Greeks, heathens as they were, saw as 
much as that two thousand years ago ; and I care very 
little for Cousin Cramchild, if he sees even less than 
they. And so forth, and so forth, till he is quite 
cross. And then tell him that if there are no water- 
babies, at least there ought to be ; and that, at least, 
he cannot answer. 

And meanwhile, my dear little man, till you know 


76 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


a great deal more about nature than Professor Owen 
and Professor Huxley put together, don’t tell me about 
what cannot be, or fancy that anything is too wonder- 
ful to be true. “ We are fearfully and wonderfully 
made,” said old David ; and so we are ; and so is 
everything around us, down to the very deal table. 
Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfully made, 
already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a 
piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and 
geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to 
you by rapping on it. 

Am I in earnest ? Oh dear no ! Don’t you know 
that this is a fairy tale, and all fun and pretence ; and 
that you are not to believe one word of it, even if it 
is true ? 

But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, 
therefore, the keeper, and the groom, and Sir John 
made a great mistake, and were very unhappy (Sir 
John at least) without any reason, when they found 
a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom’s body, 
and that he had been drowned. They were utterly 
mistaken. Tom was quite alive; and cleaner, and 
merrier, than he ever had been. The fairies had 
washed him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, 
that not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell 
had been washed quite off him, and the pretty little 
real Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam 
away, as a caddis does when its case of stones and 
silk is bored through, and away it goes on its back, 


ii A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY ' 77 

paddling to the shore, there to split its skin, and fly 
away as a caperer, on four fawn-coloured wings, with 
long legs and horns. They are foolish fellows, the 
caperers, and fly into the candle at night, if you leave 
the door open. We will hope Tom will he wiser, now 
he has got safe out of his sooty old shell. 

But good Sir John did not understand all this, 
not being a fellow of the Linnaean Society ; and he 
took it into his head that Tom was drowned. When 
they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and 
found no jewels there, nor money — nothing but three 
marbles, and a brass button with a string to it — then 
Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did 
in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than 
he need have done. So he cried, and the groom-boy 
cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, 
and the little girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and 
the old nurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), 
and my lady cried, for though people have wigs, that 
is no reason why they should not have hearts ; hut 
the keeper did not cry, though he had been so good- 
natured to Tom the morning before; for he was so 
dried up with running after poachers, that you could 
no more get tears out of him than milk out of leather : 
and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten 
pounds, and he drank it all in a week. Sir John 
sent, far and wide, to find Toms father and mother : 
but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, for 
one was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay. 


78 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


And the little girl would not play with her dolls for 
a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. And 
soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom’s 
shell in the little churchyard in Yendale, where the 
old dalesmen all sleep side by side between the lime- 
stone crags. And the dame decked it with garlands 
every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not 
stir abroad ; then the little children decked it for her. 
And always she sang an old old song, as she sat 
spinning what she called her wedding-dress. The 
children could not understand it, but they liked it 
none the less for that ; for it was very sweet, and very 
sad ; and that was enough for them. And these are 
the words of it : — 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


79 



Then hey for boot and horse , lad , 
round the world away ; 

Young blood must have its course , lad , 
every dog his day. 




80 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


When all the world is old , lad, 

And all the trees are brown ; 

And all the sport is stale, lad, 

And all the wheels run down ; 

Creep home, and take your place there , 
The spent and maimed among : 

Cod grant you find one face there , 

You loved when all was young. 



Those are the words : but they are only the body 
of it : the soul of the song was the dear old woman’s 
sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweet old air to 
which she sang ; and that, alas ! one cannot put on 
paper. And at last she grew so stiff and lame, that 


II 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


81 


the angels were forced to carry her ; and they helped 
her on with her wedding-dress, and carried her up 
over Harthover Fells, and a long way beyond that too; 
and there was a new schoolmistress in Yendale, and 
we will hope that she was not certificated. 

And all the while Tom was swimming about in the 
river, with a pretty little lace-collar of gills about his 
neck, as lively as a grig, and as clean as a fresh-run 
salmon. 

Now if you don’t like my story, then go to the 
schoolroom and learn your multiplication -table, and 
see if you like that better. Some people, no doubt, 
would do so. So much the better for us, if not for 
them. It takes all sorts, they say, to make a world. 



G 


“ He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both men and bird and beast ; 
He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small : 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all. ” 


Coleridge. 


CHAPTER III 



OM was now quite am- 
phibious. You do not 
know what that means ? 
You had better, then, 
ask the nearest Govern- 
ment pupil -teacher, who 
may possibly answer you 
smartly enough, thus — 

“ Amphibious. Adjec- 
tive, derived from two 
Greek words, ctmphi, a fish, 
and bios , a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorant 
ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; 
which therefore, like the hippopotamus, can’t live on 
the land, and dies in the water.” 

However that may be, Tom was amphibious : 

and what is better still, he was clean. For the 
first time in his life, he felt how comfortable it 


84 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


was to have nothing on him but himself. But he 
only enjoyed it : lie did not know it, or think about 
it ; just as you enjoy life and health, and yet never 
think about being alive and healthy; and may it be 
long before you have to think about it ! 

He did not remember having ever been dirty. In- 
deed, he did not remember any of his old troubles, 
being tired, or hungry, or beaten, or sent up dark 
chimneys. Since that sweet sleep, he had forgotten 
all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the 
little white girl, and in a word, all that had happened 
to him when he lived before ; and what was best of 
all, he had forgotten all the bad words which he had 
learned from Grimes, and the rude boys with whom 
he used to play. 

That is not strange : for you know, when you came 
into this world, and became a land-baby, you remem- 
bered nothing. So why should he, when he became 
a water-baby ? 

Then have you lived before ? 

My dear child, who can tell ? One can only tell 
that, by remembering something which happened 
where we lived before ; and as we remember nothin or, 
we know nothing about it ; and no book, and no man, 
can ever tell us certainly. 

There was a wise man once, a very wise man, and 
a very good man, who wrote a poem about the feelings 
which some children have about having lived before ; 
and this is what he said — 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


85 


“ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath elsewhere had its setting, 
And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory, do we comx 


From God, who is our home." 


There, you can know no more than that. But if I 
was you, I would believe that. For then the great 
fairy Science, who is likely to be queen of all the 
fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, 
and never do you harm ; and instead of fancying, with 
some people, that your body makes your soul, as if a 
steam-engine could make its own coke ; or, with some 
people, that your soul has nothing to do with your 
body, but is only stuck into it like a pin into a pin- 
cushion, to fall out with the first shake; — you will 
believe the one true, 


orthodox, 

rational, 


inductive, 
deductive, 
seductive, 
productive , 
salutary, 


philosophical, 

logical, 


irrefragable, 

nominalistic, 


comfortable , 


realistic, 

and on-all-ciccounts-to-be-received 


86 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. Ill 


doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale ; which is, that 
your soul makes your body, just as a snail makes his 
shell. For the rest, it is enough for us to be sure that 



whether or not we lived before, we shall live again ; 
though not, I hope, as poor little heathen Tom did. 
For he went downward into the water : but we, 1 hope, 
shall go upward to a very different place. 






88 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


But Tom was very happy in the water. He had 
been sadly overworked in the land-world ; and so now, 
to make up for that, he had nothing but holidays in 
the water-world for a long, long time to come. He 
had nothing to do now hut enjoy himself, and look 
at all the pretty things which are to be seen in 
the cool clear water -world, where the sun is never 
too hot, and the frost is never too cold. 

And what did he live 
on ? Water-cresses, per- 
haps ; or perhaps water- 
gruel, and water -milk ; 
too many land-babies do 
so likewise. But we do 
not know what one-tenth 
of the water -things eat ; 
so we are not answerable 
for the water-babies. 

Sometimes he went 
along the smooth gravel water-ways, looking at the 
crickets which ran in and out among the stones, 
as rabbits do on land ; or he climbed over the 
ledges of rock, and saw the sand -pipes hanging in 
thousands, with every one of them a pretty little head 
and legs peeping out; or he went into a still corner, 
and watched the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily 
as you would eat plum-pudding, and building their houses 
with silk and glue. Very fanciful ladies they were ; 
none of them would keep to the same materials for a 



Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


89 


day. One would begin with some pebbles ; then she 
would stick on a piece of green wood ; then she found 
a shell, and stuck it on too ; and the poor shell was 
alive, and did not like at all being taken to build 
houses with : but the caddis did not let him have any 
voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as vain 
people .are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of 
rotten wood, then a very smart pink 
stone, and so on, till she was patched 
all over like an Irishman’s coat. 

Then she found a long straw, five 
times as long as herself, and said, 

“ Hurrah ! my sister has a tail, and 
I’ll have one too and she stuck it 
on her back, and marched about with 
it quite proud, though it was very 
inconvenient indeed. And, at that, 
tails became all the fashion among 
the caddis -baits in that pool, as 
they were at the end of the Long 
Pond last May, and they all toddled 
about with long straws sticking out 
behind, getting between each other’s legs, and tumbling 
over each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom 
laughed at them till he cried, as we did. But they 
were quite right, you know ; for people must always 
follow the fashion, even if it be spoon -bonnets. 

Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach ; 
and tli ere he saw the water-forests. They would have 



90 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


looked to you only little weeds : but Tom, you must 
remember, was so little that everything looked a hun- 
dred times as big to him as it does to you, just as 
things do to a minnow, who sees and catches the little 
water-creatures which you can only see in a microscope. 

And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys 
and water -squirrels (they had all six legs, though; 
everything almost has six legs in the water, except efts 
and water-babies) ; and nimbly enough they ran among 
the branches. There were water-flowers there too, in 
thousands ; and Tom tried to pick them : but as soon 
as he touched them, they drew themselves in and 
turned into knots of jelly ; and then Tom saw that 
they were all alive — bells, and stars, and wheels, and 
flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colours ; and all 
alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he found 
that there was a great deal more in the world than he 
had fancied at first sight. 

There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who 
peeped out of the top of a house built of round bricks. 
He had two big wheels, and one little one, all over 
teeth, spinning round and round like the wheels in a 
thrashing-machine ; and Tom stood and stared at him, 
to see what he was going to make with his machinery. 
And what do you think he was doing ? Brick-making. 
With his two big wheels he swept together all the mud 
which floated in the water : all that was nice in it he 
put into his stomach and ate ; and all the mud he put 
into the little wheel on his breast, which really was a 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


91 


round hole set with teeth ; and there he spun it into 
a neat hard round brick; and then he took it and 
stuck it on the top of his house-wall, and set to work 
to make another. Now was not he a clever little 
fellow ? 

Tom thought so : but when he wanted to talk to 
him the brick-maker was much too busy and proud of 
his work to take notice of him. 

Now you must know that all the things under the 
water talk ; only not such a language as ours ; but 
such as horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds talk to 
each other ; and Tom soon learned to understand them 
and talk to them ; so that he might have had very 
pleasant company if he had only been a good boy. 
But I am sorry to say, he was too like some other 
little boys, very fond of hunting and tormenting 
creatures for mere sport. Some people say that boys 
cannot help it ; that it is nature, and only a proof that 
we are all originally descended from beasts of prey. 
But whether it is nature or not, little boys can help it, 
and must help it. For if they have naughty, low, 
mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, 
that is no reason why they should give way to those 
tricks like monkeys, who know no better. And there- 
fore they must not torment dumb creatures ; for if they 
do, a certain old lady who is coming will surely give 
them exactly what they deserve. 

But Tom did not know that ; and he pecked and 
howked the poor water-tilings about sadly, till they 


92 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


were all afraid of him, and got out of his way, or crept 
into their shells ; so he had no one to speak to or play 
with. 

The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see 
him so unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him 
how naughty he was, and teach him to be good, and 
to play and romp with him too : but they had been 
forbidden to do that. Tom had to learn his lesson 
for himself by sound and sharp experience, as many 
another foolish person has to do, though there may be 
many a kind heart yearning over them all the while, 
and longing to teach them what they can only teach 
themselves. 

At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it 
to peep out of its house : but its house-door was shut. 
He had never seen a caddis with a house-door before : 
so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but 
pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing 
inside. What a shame ! How should you like . to 
have any one breaking your bedroom-door in, to see 
how you looked when you where in bed ? So Tom 
broke to pieces the door, which was the prettiest little 
grating of silk, stuck all over with shining bits of 
crystal ; and when he looked in, the caddis poked out 
her head, and it had turned into just the shape of a 
bird’s. But when Tom spoke to her she could not 
answer ; for her mouth and face were tight tied up in 
a new night-cap of neat pink skin. However, if she 
didn’t answer, all the other caddises did ; for they 



111 A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 93 

held up their hands and shrieked like the cats in 
Struwelpeter : “ Oh , you nasty horrid boy ; there you 
are at it again l And she had just laid herself up for 
a fortnights sleep , and then she would have come out 
with such beautiful wings , and flown about, and laid 
such lots of eggs : and now you have broken her door, 


and she cant mend it because her mouth is tied up for 
a fortnight, and she will die. Who sent you here to 
worry us out of our lives ? ” 

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed 
of himself, and felt all the naughtier ; as little boys 
do when they have done wrong and won’t say so. 

Then he came to a pool full of little trout, and 
began tormenting them, and trying to catch them : 
but they slipped through his fingers, and jumped clean 


{ 


94 THE WATER-BABIES chap. 

out of water in their fright. But as Tom chased 
them, he came close to a great dark hover under an 
alder root, and out fioushed a huge old brown trout 
ten times as big as he was, and ran right against 
him, and knocked all the breath out of his body; 
and I don’t know which was the more frightened of 
the two. 

Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved 
to be; and under a bank he saw a very ugly dirty 
creature sitting, about half as big as himself; which 
had six legs, and a big stomach, and* a most ridiculous 
head with two great eyes and a face just like a 
donkey’s. 

“ Oh,” said Tom, “ you are an ugly fellow to be 
sure ! ” and he began making faces at him ; and put 
his nose close to him, and halloed at him, like a very 
rude boy. 

When, hey presto; all the thing’s donkey -face 
came off in a moment, and out popped a long arm 
with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and caught 
Tom by the nose. It did not hurt him much ; but it 
held him quite tight. 

“ Yah, ah ! Oh, let me go 1” cried Tom. 

“ Then let me go,” said the creature. “ I want to 
be quiet. I want to split.” 

Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go. 
“ Why do you want to split ? ” said Tom. 

“ Because my brothers and sisters have all split, 
and turned into beautiful creatures with wings ; and I 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


95 


want to split too. Don’t speak to me. I am sure I 
shall split. I will split ! ” 

Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled 
himself, and puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, and 
at last — crack, puff, hang — he opened all down his 
back, and then up to the top of his head. 

And out of his inside came the most slender, 
elegant, soft creature, as soft and smooth as Tom : but 
very pale and weak, like a little child who has been 
ill a long time in a dark room. It moved its legs 
very feebly ; and looked about it half ashamed, like a 
girl when she goes for the first time into a ballroom ; 
and then it began walking slowly up a grass stem to 
the top of the water. 

Tom was so astonished that he never said a word : 
but he stared with all his eyes. And he went up to 
the top of the water too, and peeped out to see what 
would happen. 

And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a 
wonderful change came over it. It grew strong and 
firm ; the most lovely colours began to show on its 
body, blue and yellow and black, spots and bars and 
rings ; out of its hack rose four great wings of bright 
brown gauze ; and its eyes grew so large that they 
filled all its head, and shone like ten thousand 
diamonds. 

“ Oh, you beautiful creature ! ” said Tom ; and he 
put out his hand to catch it. 

But the thing whirred up into the air, and hung 


96 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


poised on its wings a moment, and then settled down 
again by Tom quite fearless. 



“ No ! ” it said, “ you cannot catch me. I am a 
dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies ; and I shall 
dance in the sunshine, and hawk over the river, and 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND- BABY 


97 


catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like myself. 
I know what I shall do. Hurrah ! ” And he flew 
away into the air, and began catching gnats. 

“ Oh ! come back, come back,” cried Tom, “ you 
beautiful creature. I have no one to play with, and I 
am so lonely here. If you will but come back I will 
never try to catch you.” 

“ I don’t care whether you do or not,” said the 
dragon-fly ; “ for you can’t. But when I have had my 
dinner, and looked a little about this pretty place, I 
will come back, and have a little chat about all I have 
seen in my travels. Why, what a huge tree this is ! 
and what huge leaves on it ! ” 

It was only a big dock : but you know the dragon- 
fly had never seen any but little water-trees ; starwort, 
and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like ; so it 
did look very big to him. Besides, he was very short- 
sighted, as all dragon-flies are ; and never could see a 
yard before his nose ; any more than a great piany 
other folks, who are not half as handsome as he. 

The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away 
with Tom. He was a little conceited about his line 
colours and his large wings ; but you know, he had 
been a poor dirty ugly creature all his life before ; so 
there were great excuses for him. He was very fond 
of talking about ail the wonderful things he saw in the 
trees and the meadows; and Tom liked to listen to 
him, for he had forgotten all about them. So in a 
little while they became great friends. 


98 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 



And I am. very glad to say, that Tom learned such 
a lesson that day, that he did not torment creatures 
for a long time after. And then the caddises grew 
quite tame, and used to tell him strange stories about 
the way they built their houses, and changed their 

skins, and turned at 
last into winged 
flies; till Tom began 
to long to change 
his skin, and have 
wins® like them 
some day. 

And the trout 
and he made it up 
(for trout very soon 
forget if they have 
been frightened and 
hurt). So Tom used 
to play with them 
at hare and hounds, 
and great fun they 
had ; and he used 
to try to leap out 
of the water, head 
over heels, as they did before a shower came on ; but 
somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, 
though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed 
round and round under the shadow of the great oak, 
where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the green 


in A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 99 

caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs 
by silk ropes for no reason at all ; and then changed 
their foolish minds for no reason at all either ; and 
hauled themselves up again into the tree, rolling 
up the rope in a ball between their paws; which 
is a very clever rope dancer’s trick, and neither 
Blondin nor Leotard could do it : but why they 
should take so much trouble about it no one can tell ; 
for they cannot get their living, as Blondin and 
Leotard do, by trying to break their necks on a string. 

And very often Tom caught them just as they 
touched the water ; and caught the alder-flies, and the 
caperers, and the cock -tailed duns and spinners, 
yellow, and brown, and claret, and gray, and gave 
them to his friends the trout. Perhaps he was not 
quite kind to the flies ; but one must do a good turn 
to one’s friends when one can. 

And at last he gave up catching even the flies ; 
for he made acquaintance with one by accident and 
found him a very merry little fellow. And this was 
the way it happened ; and it is all quite true. 

He was basking at the top of the water one hot 
day in July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when 
he saw a new sort, a dark gray little fellow with a 
brown head. He was a very little fellow indeed : but 
he made the most of himself, as people ought to do. 
He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his wings, 
and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up the two 
whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the 


L.of C. 


100 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


cockiest little man of all little men. And so lie 
proved to be ; for instead of getting away, lie hopped 
upon Tom’s finger, and sat there as bold as nine 
tailors ; and he cried out in the tiniest, shrillest, 
squeakiest little voice you ever heard, 

“ Much obliged to you, indeed ; but I don’t want 
it yet.” 

“ Want what ?” said Tom, quite taken aback by his 
impudence. 

“ Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out 
for me to sit on. I must just go and see after my 
wife - for a few minutes. Dear me ! what a trouble- 
some business a family is !” (though the idle little 
rogue did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay 
all the eggs by herself). “ When I come back, I shall 
be glad of it, if you’ll be so good as to keep it sticking 
out just so and off he flew. 

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage ; 
and still more so, when, in five minutes he came back, 
and said — “Ah, you were tired waiting? Well, your 
other leg will do as well.” 

And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and 
began chatting away in his squeaking voice. 

“ So you live under the water ? It’s a low place. 
I lived there for some time; and was very shabby 
and dirty. But I didn’t choose that that should last 
So I turned respectable, and came up to tile top, and 
put on this gray suit. It’s a very business-like suit, 
you think, don’t you ? ” 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


101 


“Very neat and quiet indeed/’ said Tom. 

“ Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable, 
and all that sort of thing for a little, when one 
becomes a family man. But I’m tired of it, that’s 
the truth. I’ve done quite enough business, I con- 
sider, in the last week, to last me my life. So I shall 
put on a ball dress, and go out and be a smart man, 
and see the gay world, and have a dance or two. 
Why shouldn’t one be jolly if one can ?” 

“And what will become of your wife ?” 

“ Oh ! she is a very plain stupid creature, and 
that’s the truth ; and thinks about nothing but eggs. 
If she chooses to come, why she may ; and if not, 
why I go without her; — and here I go.” 

And, as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then 
quite white. 

“Why, you’re ill!” said Tom. But he did not 
answer. 

“ You’re dead,” said Tom, looking at him as he 
stood on his knee as white as a ghost. 

“No, I ain’t!” answered a little squeaking voice 
over his head. “ This is me up here, in my ball- 
dress ; and that’s my skin. Ha, ha ! you could not 
do such a trick as that !” 

And no more Tom could, nor Houdin, nor Bobin, 
nor Frikell, nor all the conjurors in the world. For 
the little rogue had jumped clean out of his own skin, 
and left it standing on Tom’s knee, eyes, wings, legs, 
tail, exactly as if it had been alive. 


102 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ Ha, ha !” he said, and he jerked and skipped up 
and down, never stopping an instant, just as if he 
had St. Vitus’s dance. “ Ain’t I a pretty fellow 
now ?” 

And so he was ; for his body was white, and his 
tail orange, and his eyes all the colours of a peacock’s 
tail. And what was the oddest of all, the whisks at 
the end of his tail had grown five times as long as 
they were before. 

“Ah!” said he, “now I will see the gay world. 
My living won’t cost me much, for I have no mouth, 
you see, and no inside ; so I can never be hungry nor 
have the stomach-ache neither.” 

No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard 
and empty as a quill, as such silly shallow-hearted 
fellows deserve to grow. 

But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he 
was quite proud of it, as a good many fine gentle- 
men are, and began flirting and flipping up and down, 
and singing — 

“ My wife shall dance, and I shall sing , 

So merrily pass the day ; 

For I hold it for quite the wisest thing, 

To drive dull care away .” 

And he danced up and down for three days and 
three nights, till he grew so tired, that he tumbled 
into the water, and floated down. But what became 
of him Tom never knew, and he himself never minded ; 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


103 


for Tom heard him singing to the last, as he floated 
down — 

“ To drive dull care away-ay-ay ! ” 

And if he did not care, why nobody else cared 
either. 

But one day Tom had a new adventure. He was 
sitting on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend the 
dragon-fly, watching the gnats dance. The dragon- 
fly had eaten as many as he wanted, and was sitting 
quite still and sleepy, for it was very hot and 
bright.' The gnats (who did not care the least for 
their poor brothers’ death) danced a foot over his head 
quite happily, and a large black fly settled within an 
inch of his nose, and began washing his own face and 
combing his hair with his paws : but the dragon-fly 
never stirred, and kept on chatting to Tom about the 
times when he lived under the water. 

Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the 
stream ; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and 
squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two stock- 
doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, 
and left them there to settle themselves and make 
music. 

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight 
as strange as the noise ; a great ball rolling over and 
over down the stream, seeming one moment of soft 
brown fur, and the next of shining glass : and yet it 
was not a ball ; for sometimes it broke up and 


104 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


streamed away in pieces, and then it joined again •, 
and all the while the noise came out of it louder and 
louder. 

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be : but, 
of course, with his short sight, he could not even see 
it, though it was not ten yards away. So he took the 
neatest little header into the water, and started off to 
see for himself ; and, when he came near, the ball 
turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many 
times larger than Tom, who w T ere swimming about, and 
rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and 
cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in 
the. most charming fashion that ever was seen. And 
if you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological 
Gardens (for I am afraid that you won’t see it nearer, 
unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and 
go down to Cordery’s Moor, and watch by the great 
withy pollard which hangs over the backwater, where 
the otters breed sometimes), and then say, if otters at 
play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, grace- 
fullest creatures you ever saw. 

But, when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted 
out from the rest, and cried in the water-laimua^e 
sharply enough, “ Quick, children, here is something 
to eat, indeed!” and came at poor Tom, showing such 
a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in 
a grinning mouth, that Tom, who had thought her 
very handsome, said to himself, Handsome is that 
handsome does , and slipped in between the water-lily 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


105 


roots as fast as he could, and then turned round and 
made faces at her. 

“ Come out,” said the wicked old otter, “ or it will 
be worse for you.” 

But Tom looked at her from between two thick 
roots, and shook them with all his might, making 
horrible faces all the while, just as he used to grin 



through the railings at the old women, when he lived 
before. It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but 
you know, Tom had not finished his education yet. 

“ Come, away, children,” said the otter in disgust, 
“ it is not worth eating, after all. It is only a nasty 
eft, which nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in 
the pond.” 

“I am not an eft J” said Tom; “efts have tails.” 


106 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. Ill 


“You are an eft,” said the otter, very positively; 
“ I see your two hands quite plain, and I know you 
have a tail.” 

“I tell you I have not,” said Tom. “Look here !” 
and he turned his pretty little self quite round ; and, 
sure enough, he had no more tail than you. 

The otter might have got out of it by saying that 
Tom was a frog : but, like a great many other people, 
when she had once said a thing, she stood to it, right 
or wrong ; so she answered : 

“ I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and 
not fit food for gentlefolk like me and my children. 
You may stay there till the salmon eat you (she knew 
the salmon would not, but she wanted to frighten 
poor Tom). Ha ! ha ! they will eat you, and we will 
eat them and the otter laughed such a wicked cruel 
laugh — as you may hear them do sometimes ; and 
the first time that you hear it you will probably think 
it is bogies. 

“What are salmon?” asked Tom. 

“ Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They 
are the lords of the fish, and we are lords of the 
salmon ;” and she laughed again. “ We hunt them 
up and down the pools, and drive them up into a 
corner, the silly things ; they are so proud, and bully 
the little trout, and the minnows, till they see us 
coming, and then they are so meek all at once ; and 
we catch them, but we disdain to eat them all ; we 
just bite out their soft throats and suck their sweet 







108 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


juice — Oh, so good!” — (and she licked her wicked 
lips) — “ and then throw them away, and go and catch 
another. They are coming soon, children, coming 
soon ; I can smell the rain coming up off the sea, and 
then hurrah for a fresh, and salmon, and plenty of 
eating all day long.” 

And the otter grew so proud that she turned head 
over 'heels twice, and then stood upright half out of 
the water, grinning like a Cheshire cat. 

“ And where do they come from ?” asked Tom, 
who kept himself very close, for he was considerably 
frightened. 

“Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they 
might stay and be safe if they liked. But out of the 
sea the silly things come, into the great river down 
below, and we come up to watch for them ; and when 
they go down again we go down and follow them. 
And there we fish for the bass and the pollock, and 
have jolly days along the shore, and toss and roll in 
the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags. 
Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were not 
for those horrid men.” 

“What are men?” asked Tom; but somehow he 
seemed to know before he asked. 

“ Two-legged things, eft : and, now I come to look 
at you, they are actually something like you, if you 
had not a tail ” (she was determined that Tom should 
have a tail), “ only a great deal bigger, worse luck for 
us ; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines, 


hi A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 109 

which get into our feet sometimes, and set pots along 
the rocks to catch lobsters. They speared my poor 
dear husband as he went out to find something for me 
to eat. I was laid up among the crags then, and we 
were very low in the world, for the sea was so rouo-h 

O 

that no fish would come in shore. But they speared 
him, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying him away 
upon a pole. Ah, he lost his life for your sakes, 
my children, poor dear obedient creature that he 
was.” 

And the otter grew so sentimental (for otters can 
be very sentimental when they choose, like a good 
many people who are both cruel and greedy, and no 
good to anybody at all) that she sailed solemnly away 
down the burn, and Tom saw her no more for that 
time. And lucky it was for her that she did so ; for 
no sooner was she gone, than down the bank came 
seven little rough terrier dogs, snuffing and yapping, 
and grubbing and splashing, in full cry after the otter. 
Tom hid among the water-lilies till they were gone ; 
for he could not guess that they were the water-fairies 
come to help him. 

But he could not help thinking of what the otter 
had said about the great river and the broad sea. 
And, as he thought, he longed to go and see them. 
He could not tell why; but the more he thought, the 
more he grew discontented with the narrow little 
stream in which he lived, and all his companions 
there ; and wanted to get out into the wide wide 


110 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


world, and enjoy all the wonderful Sights of which he 
was sure it was full. 

And once he set off to go down the stream. But 
the stream was very low ; and when he came to the 
shallows he could not keep under water, for there was 
no water left to keep under. So the sun burned his 
back and made him sick ; and he went back again 
and lay quiet in the pool for a whole week more. 

And then, on the evening of a very hot day, he 
saw a sight. 

He had been very stupid all day, and so had the 
trout ; for they would not move an inch to take a fly, 
though there were thousands on the water, but lay 
dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones ; 
* and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their 
smooth cool sides, for the water was quite warm and 
unpleasant. 

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and 
Tom looked up and saw a blanket of black clouds 
lying right across the valley above his head, resting 
on the crags right and left. He felt not quite 
frightened, but very still ; for everything was still. 
There was not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a 
bird to be heard ; and next a few great drops of rain 
fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, 
and made him pop his head down quickly enough. 

And then the thunder roared, and the lightning 
flashed, and leapt across Vendale and back again, from 
cloud to cloud, and cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


111 


the stream seemdfcl to shake : and Tom looked up at 
it through the water, and thought it the finest thing 
he ever saw in his life. 

But out of the water he dared not put his head ; 
for the rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail 
hammered like shot on the stream, and churned it 
into foam ; and soon the stream rose, and rushed 
down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of 
beetles, and sticks ; and straws, and worms, and addle- 
eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, 
and omnium-gatherums, and this, that, and the other, 
enough to fill nine museums. 

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and 
hid behind a rock. But the trout did not; for out 
they rushed from among the stones, and began gobbling 
the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrel- 
some way, and swimming about with great worms 
hanging out of their mouths, tugging and kicking to 
get them away from each other. 

And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw 
a new sight — all the bottom of the stream alive with 
great eels, turning and twisting along, all down stream 
and away. They had been hiding for weeks past in the 
cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud; and 
Tom had hardly ever seen them, except now and then 
at night : hut now they were all out, and went 
hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was 
quite frightened. And as they hurried past he could 
hear them say to each other, “We must run, we must 


112 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 



run. What a jolly thunderstorm ! Down to the 
sea, down to the sea !” 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


113 


And then the otter came by with all her brood, 
twining and sweeping along as fast as the eels them- 
selves ; and she spied Tom as she came by, and said : 

“ Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the 
world. Come along, children, never mind those nasty 
eels : we shall breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down 
to the sea, down to the sea !” 

Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and 
by the light of it — in the thousandth part of a second 
they were gone again — but he had seen them, he was 
certain of it — Three beautiful little white girls, with 
their arms twined round each other’s necks, floating 
down the torrent, as they sang, “Down to the sea, 
down to the sea !” 

“Oh stay! Wait for me!” cried Tom; but they 
were gone : yet he could hear their voices clear and 
sweet through the roar of thunder and water and 
wind, singing as they died away, “Down to the sea!” 

“ Down to the sea ? ” said Tom ; “ everything is 
going to the sea, and I will go too. Good-bye, trout.” 
But the trout were so busy gobbling worms that they 
never turned to answer him ; so that Tom was spared 
the pain of bidding them farewell. 

And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the 
bright flashes of the storm; past tall birch -fringed 
rocks, which shone out one moment as clear as day, 
and the next were dark as night ; past dark hovers 
under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed 
out on Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and 

i 


114 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them home 
again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle 
with a water -baby; on through narrow strids and 
roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and 
blinded for a moment by the rushing waters ; along 
deep reaches, where the white water-lilies tossed and 
flapped beneath the wind and hail ; past sleeping 
villages; under dark bridge -arches, and away and 
away to the sea. And Tom could not stop, and 
did not care to stop ; he would see the great world 
below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the 
wide wide sea. 

And when the daylight came, Tom found himself 
out in the salmon river. 

And what sort of a river was it ? Was it like an 
Irish stream, winding through the brown bogs, where 
the wild ducks squatter up from among the white 
water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and fro, crying 
“ Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep ;” and Dennis tells 
you strange stories of the Peishtamore, the great bogy- 
snake which lies in the black peat pools, among the 
old pine-stems, and puts his head out at night to snap 
at the cattle as they come down to drink ? — But you 
must not believe all that Dennis tells you, mind ; for 
if you ask him : 

“ Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis ?” 

“ Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes ? Salmbn ? 
Cartloads it is of thim, thin, an’ ridgmens, shouldthering 
ache out of water, av’ ye’d but the luck to see thim.” 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


115 


Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a 
rise. 

“ But there can’t be a salmon here, Dennis ! and, 
if you’ll but think, if one had come up last tide, he’d 
be gone to the higher pools by now.” 

“ Shure thin, and your honour’s the thrue fisher- 



man, and understands it all like a book. Why, ye 
spake as if ye’d known the wather a thousand years ! 
As I said, how could there be a fish here at all, just 
now V* 

“ But you said just now they were shouldering 
each other out of water?” 

And then Dennis will look up at you with his 


116 


the water-babip:s 


CHAP. 


handsome, sly, soft, sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, 
Irish gray eye, and answer with the prettiest smile : 

“ Shure, and didn’t I think your honour would like 
a pleasant answer ?” 

So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the 
habit of giving pleasant answers : but, instead of being 
angry with him, you must remember that he is a poor 
Paddy, and knows no better ; so you must just burst 
out laughing ; and then he will burst out laughing too, 
and slave for you, and trot about after you, and show 
you good sport if he can — for he is an affectionate 
fellow, and as fond of sport as you are — and if he 
can’t, tell you fibs instead, a hundred an hour; and 
wonder all the while why poor ould Ireland does not 
prosper like England and Scotland, and some other 
places, where folk have taken up a ridiculous fancy 
that honesty is the best policy. 

Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is 
remarkable chiefly (at least, till this last year) for 
containing no salmon, as they have been all poached 
out by the enlightened peasantry, to prevent the 
Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, my little dear, 
your kith and kin, and signifies much the same as the 
Chinese Fan Quei) from coming bothering into Wales, 
with good tackle, and ready money, and civilisation, 
and common honesty, and other like things of which 
the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever ? 

Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will 
see among the Hampshire water-meadows before your 


ill A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 117 

hairs are gray, under the wise new fishing-laws ? — 
when Winchester apprentices shall covenant, as they 
did three hundred years ago, not to be made to eat 
salmon more than three days a week ; and fresh-run 
fish shall be as plentiful under Salisbury spire as they 
are in Holly-hole at Christchurch ; in the good time 
coming, when folks shall see that, of all Heaven’s gifts 
of food, the one to be protected most carefully is that 
worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous enough to 
go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and to come 
back next year weighing five pounds, without having- 
cost the soil or the state one farthing ? 

Or was it like a Scotch stream, such as Arthur 
Clough drew in his “ Bothie ” : — 

“ Where over a ledge of granite 
Into a granite bason the amber torrent descended . . . . • 
Beautiful there for the colour derived from green rocks 
under ; 

Beautiful most of all , where beads of foam uprising 
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the 
stillness. . . . 

Cliff over cliff for its sides , with rowan and pendant birch 
boughs . . . 

Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and 
fish such a stream as that, you will hardly care, I 
think, whether she be roaring down in full spate, like 
coffee covered with scald cream, while the fish are 
swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in a boat- 


118 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


race, or flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out 
of the fiercest of the foam ; or whether the fall he 
dwindled to a single thread, and the shingle -below be 
as white and dusty as a turnpike road, while the 
salmon huddle together in one dark cloud in the clear 
amber pool, sleeping away their time till the rain 
creeps back again off the sea. You will not care much, 



if you have eyes and brains ; for you will lay down 
your rod contentedly, and drink in at your eyes the 
beauty of that glorious place ; and listen to the water- 
ouzel piping on the stones, and watch the yellow roes 
come down to drink and look up at you with their 
great soft trustful eyes, as much as to say, “ You could 
not have the heart to shoot at us ?” And then, if 
you have sense, you will turn and talk to the great 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


119 


giant of a gilly who lies basking on the stone beside 
you. He will tell you no fibs, my little man ; for he 
is a Scotchman, and fears God, and not the priest; 
and, as you talk: with him, you will be surprised more 
and more at his knowledge, his sense, his humour, his 
courtesy ; and you will find out — unless you have 
found it out before — that a man may learn from his 
Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he had 
been brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London. 

Ho. It was none of these, the salmon stream at 
Harthover. It was such a stream as you see in dear 
old Bewick; Bewick, who was born and bred upon 
them.' A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on 
from broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow 
to broad pool, over great fields of shingle, under oak 
and ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone, past green 
meadows, and fair parks, and a great house of gray 
stone, and brown moors above, and here and there 
against the sky the smoking chimney of a colliery. 
You must look at Bewick to see just what it was like, 
for he has drawn it a hundred times with the care and 
the love of a true north countryman ; and, even if you 
do not care about the salmon river, you ought, like all 
good boys, to know your Bewick. 

At least, so old Sir John used to say, and very 
sensibly he put it too, as he was wont to do : 

“ If they want to describe a finished young gentle- 
man in France, I hear, they say of him, ‘II sait son 
Rabelais' But’ if I want to describe one in England, 


120 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. Ill 


I say, ‘ He knows his Beivick! And I think that is 
the higher compliment.” 

But Tom thought nothing about what the river 
was like. All his fancy was, to get down to the wide 
wide sea. 

And after a while he came to a place where the 
river spread out into broad still shallow reaches, so 
wide that little Tom, as he put his head out of the 
water, could hardly see across. 

And there he stopped. He got a little frightened. 
“ This must be the sea,” he thought. “What a wide 
place it is ! If I go on into it I shall surely lose my 
way, or some strange thing will bite me. 1 will stop 
here and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some 
one to tell me where I shall go.” 

So he went back a little way, and crept into a 
crack of the rock, just where the river opened out into 
the wide shallows, and watched for some one to tell 
him his way : but the otter and the eels were gone on 
miles and miles down the stream. 

There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite 
tired with his night’s journey ; and, when he woke, the 
stream was clearing to a beautiful amber hue, though 
it was still very high. And after a while he saw a 
sight which made him jump up ; for he knew in a 
moment it was one of the things which he had come 
to look for. 

Such a fish ! ten times as big as the biggest trout, 
and a hundred times as big as Tom, sculling up the 



* 






122 


THE WATEft-BABIES 


CHAP. 


stream past him, as easily as Tom had sculled 
down. 

Such a fish ! shining silver from head to tail, and 
here and there a crimson dot ; with a grand hooked 
nose and grand curling lip, and a grand bright eye, 
looking round him as proudly as a king, and sur- 
veying the water right and left as if all belonged to 
him. Surely he must be the salmon, the king of all 
the fish. 

Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep into 
a hole ; hut he need not have been ; for salmon are all 
true gentlemen, and, like true gentlemen, they look 
noble and proud enough, and yet, like true gentlemen, 
they never harm or quarrel with any one, hut go 
about their own business, and leave rude fellows to 
themselves. 

The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then 
went on without minding him, with a swish or two of 
his tail which made the stream boil again. And in a 
few minutes came another, and then four or five, and 
so on ; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up 
the cataract with strong strokes of their silver tails, 
now and then leaping clean out of water and up over 
a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the bright 
sun ; while Tom was so delighted that he could have 
watched them all day long. 

And at last one came up bigger than all the rest ; 
but he came slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and 
seemed very anxious and busy. And Tom saw that 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND- BABY 


123 


he was helping another salmon, an especially handsome 
one, who had not a single spot upon it, but was 
clothed in pure silver from nose to tail. 

“My dear,” said the great fish to his companion, 
“ you really look dreadfully tired, and you must not 
over-exert yourself at first. Do rest yourself behind 
this rock ; ” and he shoved her gently with his nose, to 
the rock where Tom sat. 

You must know that this was the salmon’s wife. 
For salmon, like other true gentlemen, always choose 
their lady, and love her, and are true to her, and take 
care of her and work for her, and fight for her, as every 
true gentleman ought ; and are not like vulgar chub 
and roach and pike, who have no high feelings, and 
take no care of their wives. 

Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely 
one moment, as if he was going to bite him. 

“ What do you want here ? ” he said, very fiercely. 

“ Oh, don’t hurt me ! ” cried Tom. “ I only want 
to look at you ; you are so handsome.” 

“ Ah ? ” said the salmon, very stately but very 
civilly. “ I really beg your pardon ; I see what you 
are, my little dear. I have met one or two creatures 
like you before, and found them very agreeable and 
well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a great 
kindness lately, which I hope to be able to repay. I 
hope we shall not be in your way here. As soon as 
this lady is rested, we shall proceed on our journey.” 

What a well-bred old salmon be was ! 


124 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ So you have seen things like me before ? ” asked 
Tom. 

“ Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last 
night that one at the river’s mouth came and warned 
me and my wife of some new stake-nets which had 
got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last winter, 
and showed us the way round them, in the most 
charmingly obliging way.” 

“ So there are babies in the sea ? cried Tom, and 
clapped his little hands. “ Then I shall have some 
one to play with there ? How delightful ! ” 

“Were there no babies up this stream ?” asked the 
lady salmon. 

“ No ! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw 
three last night ; but they were gone in an instant, 
down to the sea. So I went too ; for I had nothing 
to play with but caddises and dragon-flies and trout.” 

“ Ugh ! ” cried the lady, “ what low company ! ” 

“ My dear, if he has been in low company, he has 
certainly not learnt their low manners,” said the salmon. 

“ hTo, indeed, poor little dear : but how sad for 
him to live among such people as caddises, who have 
actually six legs, the nasty things ; and dragon-flies, 
too ! why they are not even good to eat ; for I tried 
them once, and they are all hard and empty ; and, as 
for trout, every one knows what they are.” Whereon 
she curled up her lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, 
while her husband curled up his too, till he looked as 
proud as Alcibiades. 


Ill 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


125 


“ Why do you dislike the trout so ? ” asked Tom. 

“My dear, we do not even mention them, if we 
can help it ; for I am sorry to say they are relations 
of ours who do us no credit. A great many years ago 
they were just like us : but they were so lazy, and 
cowardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to 
the sea every year to see the world and grow strong 
and fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the little 
streams and eat worms and grubs ; and they are very 



properly punished for it; for they have grown % ugly 
and brown and spotted and small ; and are actually so 
degraded in their tastes, that they will eat our children.” 

“ And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance 
with us again,” said the lady. “ Why, I have actually 
known one of them propose to a lady salmon, the little 
impudent little creature ” 

“ I should hope,” said the gentleman, “ that there are 
very few ladies of our race who would degrade them- 


126 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. Ill 


selves by listening to such a creature for an instant. 
If I saw such a thing happen, I should consider it my 
duty to put them both to death upon the spot.” So 
the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded hidalgo 
of Spain ; and what is more, he would have done it 
too. For you must know, no enemies are so bitter 
against each other as those who are of the same race ; 
and a salmon looks on a trout, as some great folks look 
on some little folks, as something just too much like 
himself to be tolerated. 


“ Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ; 
Our meddling intellect 
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things 
We murder to dissect. 

Enough of science and of art : 

Close up these barren leaves ; 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives.” 


Wordsworth 


CHAPTER IY 



the salmon went up, 
after Tom had warned 
them of the wicked 
old otter; and Tom 
went down, but 
slowly and cau- 
tiously, coasting along 
the shore. He was 
many days about it, for it 
was many miles down to the 
sea ; and perhaps he would 
never have found his way, if 
the fairies had not guided him, without his seeing 
their fair faces, or feeling their gentle hands. 

And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. 
It was a clear still September night, and the moon 
shone so brightly down through the water, that he 
could not sleep, though lie shut his eyes as tight as 


chap, iv A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 129 

possible. So at last he came up to the top, and sat 
upon a little point of rock, and looked up at the 
broad yellow moon, and wondered what she was, and 
thought that she looked at him. And he watched 
the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black 
heads of the firs, and the silver -frosted lawns, and 
listened to the owl’s hoot, and the snipe’s bleat, and 
the fox’s bark, and the otter’s laugh ; and smelt the 
soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of heather 
honey off the grouse moor far above; and felt very 
happy, though he could not well tell why. You, of 
course, would have been very cold sitting there on 
a September night, without the least bit of clothes 
on your wet back ; but Tom was a water-baby, and 
therefore felt cold no more than a fish. 

Suddenly, he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red 
light moved along the river-side, and threw down into 
the water a long tap-root of flame. Tom, curious 
little rogue that he was, must needs go and see what 
it was ; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as 
it stopped over a shallow run at the edge of a low 
rock. 

And there, underneath the light, lay five or six 
great salmon, looking up at the flame with their 
great goggle eyes, and wagging their tails, as if they 
were very much pleased at it. 

Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful 
light nearer, and made a splash. 

And he heard a voice say : 

K 


130 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ There was a fish rose.” 

He did not know what the words meant : but he 
seemed to know the sound of them, and to know the 
voice which spoke them ; and he saw on the bank 
three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held 
the light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long 
pole. And he knew that they were men, and was 
frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from 
which he could see what went on. 

The man with the torch bent down over the water, 
and looked earnestly in ; and then he said : 

“ Tak’ that muckle fellow, lad ; he’s ower fifteen 
punds ; and liaud your hand steady.” 

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and 
longed to warn the foolish salmon, who kept staring 
up at the light as if he was bewitched. But before 
he could make up his mind, down came the pole 
through the water; there was a fearful splash and 
struggle, and Tom saw that the poor salmon was 
speared right through, and was lifted out of the water. 

And then, from behind, there sprang on these 
three men three other men ; and there were shouts, 
and blows, and words which Tom recollected to have 
heard before ; and he shuddered and turned sick at 
them now, for he felt somehow that they were strange, 
and ugly, and wrong, and horrible. And it all began 
to come back to him. They were men ; and they 
were fighting ; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, 
such as Tom had seen too many times before. 


rv 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


131 


And he stopped his little ears, and longed to 
swim away ; and was very glad that he was a water- 
baby, and had nothing to do any more with horrid 
dirty men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul 
words on their lips ; but he dared not stir out of his 
hole : while the rock shook over his head with the 
trampling and struggling of the keepers and the 
poachers. 

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and 
a frightful flash, and a hissing, and all was still. 

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the 
men ; he who held the light in his hand. Into the 
swift river he sank, and rolled over and over in the 
current. Tom heard the men above run along, 
seemingly looking for him ; but he drifted down into 
the deep hole below, and there lay quite still, and 
they could not find him. 

Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet ; and 
then he peeped out, and saw the man lying. At last 
he screwed up his courage and swam down to him. 
“ Perhaps,” he thought, “ the water has made him fall 
asleep, as it did me.” 

Then he went nearer. He grew more and more 
curious, he could not tell why. He must go and look 
at him. He would go very quietly, of course ; so he 
swam round and round him, closer and closer; and, 
as he did not stir, at last he came quite close and 
looked him in the face. 

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see 


132 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


every feature; and, as lie saw, he recollected, bit by 
bit, it was his old master, Grimes. 

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he 
co aid. 

“ Oh dear me !” he thought, “ now he will turn 
into a water-baby. What a nasty troublesome one 
he will be ! And perhaps he will find me out, and 
beat me again.” 

So he went up the river again a little way, and 
lay there the rest of the night under an alder root ; 
but, when morning came, he longed to go down again 
to the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had 
turned into a water-baby yet. 

So he went very carefully, peeping round all the 
rocks, and hiding under all the roots. Mr. Grimes 
lay there still; he had not turned into a water-baby. 
In the afternoon Tom went back again. He could 
not rest till he had found out what had become of 
Mr. Grimes. But this time Mr. Grimes was gone ; 
and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into 
a water-baby. 

He might have made himself easy, poor little man ; 
Mr. Grimes did not turn into a water-baby, or any- 
thing like one at all. But he did not make himself 
easy ; and a long time he was fearful lest he should 
meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool. He could 
not know that the fairies had carried him away, and 
put him, where they put everything which falls into 
the water, exactly where it ought to be. But, do you 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


133 


know, what had happened to Mr. Grimes had such an 
effect on him that he never poached salmon any more. 
And it is quite certain that, when a man becomes a 
confirmed poacher, the only way to cure him is to put 
him under water for twenty-four hours, like Grimes. 
So when you grow to be a big man, do you behave as 
all honest fellows should ; and never touch a fish or a 
head of game which belongs to another man without 
his express leave ; and then people will call you a 
gentleman, and treat you like one ; and perhaps give 
you good sport : instead of hitting you into the river, 
or calling you a poaching snob. 

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of 
staying near Grimes : and as he went, all the vale 
looked sad. The red and yellow leaves showered 
down into the river; the flies and beetles were all 
dead and gone; the chill autumn fog lay low upon 
the hills, and sometimes spread itself so thickly on the 
river that he could not see his way. But he felt his 
way instead, following the flow of the stream, day after 
day, past great bridges, past boats and barges, past 
the great town, with its wharfs, and mills, and tall 
smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in 
the stream ; and now and then he ran against their 
hawsers, and wondered what they were, and peeped 
out, and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking 
their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was 
terribly afraid of being caught by man and turned into 
a chimney-sweep once more. He did not know that 


134 


tHE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the fairies were close to him always, shutting the 
sailors’ eyes lest they should see him, and turning 
him aside from millraces, and sewer-mouths, and all 
foul and dangerous things. Poor little fellow, it was a 
dreary journey for him ; and more than once he longed 
to he back in Vendale, playing with the trout in the 
bright summer sun. But it could not be. What has 
been once can never come over again. And people 
can be little babies, even water-babies, only once in 
their lives. 

Besides, people who make up their minds to go 
and see the world, as Tom did, must needs find it a 
weary journey. Lucky for them if they do not lose 
heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely 
to the end as Tom did. For then they will remain 
neither boys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red- 
herring : having learnt a great deal too much, and yet 
not enough ; and sown their wild oats, without having 
the advantage of reaping them. 

But Tom was always a brave, determined, little 
English bull -dog, who never knew when he was 
beaten ; and on and on he held, till he saw a long way 
off the red buoy through the fog. And then he found 
to his surprise, the stream turned round, and running 
up inland. 

It was the tide, of course : but Tom knew nothin" 

o 

of the tide. He only knew that in a minute more the 
water, which had been fresh, turned salt all round 
him. And then there came a change over him. He 


IV A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 135 

felt as strong, and light, and fresh, as if his veins had 
run champagne ; and gave, he did not know why, 
three skips out of the water, a yard high, and head 
over heels, just as the salmon do when they first touch 
the noble rich salt water, which, as some wise men tell 
us, is the mother of all living; things. 

He did not care now for the tide being against 



him. The red buoy was in sight, dancing in the open 
sea ; and to the buoy he would go, and to it he went. 
He passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and 
rushing in after the shrimps, but he never heeded 
them, or they him ; and once he passed a great black 
shining seal, who was coming in after the mullet. 
The seal put his head and shoulders out of water, and 
stared at him, looking exactly like a fat old greasy 
negro with a gray pate. And Tom, instead of being 


136 


THE WATER BABIES 


CHAP. 


frightened, said, “ How d’ye do, sir ; what a beautiful 
place the sea is !” And the old seal, instead of trying 
to bite him, looked at him with his soft sleepy winking 
eyes, and said, “ Good tide to you, my little man ; are 
you looking for your brothers and sisters ? I passed 
them all at play outside.” 

“ Oh, then,” said Tom, “ I shall have playfellows 
at last,” and he swam on to the buoy, and got upon it 
(for he was quite out of breath) and sat there, and 

looked round for 
water -babies : but 
there were none to 
be seen. 

The sea-breeze 
came in freshly with 
the tide and blew 
the fog away ; and 
the little waves 
danced for joy 
around the buoy, and the old buoy danced with 
them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over the 
bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up ; 
and the breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white 
sands, and jumped up over the rocks, to see what the 
green fields inside were like, and tumbled down and 
broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a 
bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. 
And the terns hovered over Tom like huge white 
dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed 



IV A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 137 

like girls at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills 
and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and 
whistled sweet and wild. And Tom looked and 
looked, and listened ; and he would have been very 
happy, if he could only have seen the water-babies. 
Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, and 
swam round and round in search of them: but in 
vain. Sometimes he thought he heard them laughing : 
but it was only the laughter of the ripples. And 
sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom : 
but it was only white and pink shells. And once he 
was sure he had found one, for he saw two bright 
eyes peeping out of the sand. So he dived down, and 
began scraping the sand away, and cried, “ Don’t hide ; 
I do want some one to play with so much!” And 
out jumped a great turbot with his ugly eyes and 
mouth all awry, and flopped away along the bottom, 
knocking poor Tom over. And he sat down at the 
bottom of the sea, and cried salt tears from sheer 
disappointment. 

To have come all this way, and faced so many 
dangers, and yet to find no water-babies ! How hard ! 
Well, it did seem hard : but people, even little babies, 
cannot have all they want without waiting for it, and 
working for it too, my little man, as you will find out 
some day. 

And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, 
looking out to sea, and wondering when the water- 
babies would come back ; and yet they never came. 










(JHAP. IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


139 


Then he began to ask all the strange things which 
came in out of the sea if they had seen any; and 
some said “ Yes,” and some said nothing at all. 

He asked the bass and the pollock ; but they were 
so greedy after the shrimps that they did not care to 
answer him a word. 

Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea- 
snails, floating along, each on a sponge full of foam, 
and Tom said, “ Where do you come from, you pretty 
creatures ? and have you seen the water-babies ?” 

And the sea-snails answered, “ Whence we come 
we know not ; and whither we are going, who can 
tell ? We float out our life in the mid-ocean, with 
the warm sunshine above our heads, and the warm 
gulf-stream below ; and that is enough for us. Yes ; 
perhaps we have seen the water- babies. We have 
seen many strange things as we sailed along.” And 
they floated away, the happy stupid things, and all 
went ashore upon the sands. 

Then there came in a great lazy sun fish, as big as 
a fat pig cut in half ; and he seemed to have been cut 
in half too, and squeezed in a clothes-press till he was 
flat ; but to all his big body and big fins he had only 
a little rabbit’s mouth, no bigger than Tom’s; and, 
when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little 
squeaky feeble voice : 

“ I’m sure I don’t know ; I’ve lost my way. I 
meant to go to the Chesapeake, and I’m afraid I’ve 
got wrong somehow. Dear me ! it was all by following 


140 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


that pleasant warm water. I’m sure I’ve lost my 
way.” 

And, when Tom asked him again, he could only 

answer, “ I’ve lost 
my way. Don’t 
talk to me ; I 
want to think.” 

But, like a 
good many other 
people, the more 
he tried to think 
the less he could 
think ; and Tom saw him blundering about all day, till 
the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the water, 
and rowed out, and struck a boat-hook into him, and 
took him away. They took him up. to the town and 
showed him for a penny a head, and made a good day’s 
work of it. But of course Tom did not know that. 

Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling as 
they went — papas, and mammas, and little children — 
and all quite smooth and shiny, because the fairies 
French-polish them every morning ; and they sighed 
so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage to 
speak to them : but all they answered was, “ Hush, 
hush, hush for that was all they had learnt to say. 

And then there came a shoal of basking sharks, 
some of them as long as a boat, and Tom was 
frightened at them. But they were very lazy good- 
natured fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks 



IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


141 


and blue sharks and ground sharks and hammer-heads, 
who eat men, or saw-fish and threshers and ice-sharks, 
who hunt the poor old whales. They came and 
rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and lay 
basking in the sun with their backfins out of water; 
and winked at Tom : but he never could get them to 
speak. They had eaten so many herrings that they 
were quite stupid ; and Tom was glad when a collier 
brig came by and frightened them all away ; for they 
did smell most horribly, certainly, and he had to hold 
his nose tight as long as they were there. 

And then there came by a beautiful creature, like 
a ribbon of pure silver with a sharp head and very 
A>ng teeth ; but it seemed very sick and sad. Some- 
times it rolled helpless on its side ; and then it dashed 
away glittering like white fire ; and then it lay sick 
again and motionless. 

“Where do you come from ?” asked Tom. “And 
why are you so sick and sad ? ” 

• “ I come from the warm Carolinas, and the 

sandbanks fringed with pines ; where the great owl- 
rays leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide. 
But I wandered north and north, upon the treacherous 
warm gulf-stream, till I met with the cold icebergs, 
afloat in the mid ocean. So I got tangled among the 
icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath. But 
the water-babies helped me from among them, and set 
me free again. And now I am mending every day ; 
but I am very sick and sad ; and perhaps I shall 


142 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. IV 


never get home again to play with the owl-rays any 
more.” 

“Oh!” cried Tom. “And you have seen water- 
babies ? Have you seen any near here ?” 

“ Yes ; they helped me again last night, or I should 
have been eaten by a great black porpoise.” 

How vexatious ! The water-babies close to him, 
and yet he could not find one. 

And then he left the buoy, and used to go along 
the sands and round the rocks, and come out in the 
night — like the forsaken Merman in Mr. Arnold’s 
beautiful, beautiful poem, which you must learn by 
heart some day — and sit upon a point of rock, among 
the shining sea-weeds, in the low October tides, and 
cry and call for the water-babies ; but he never heard 
a voice call in return. And at last, with his fretting 
and crying, he grew quite lean and thin. 

But one day among the rocks he found a play- 
fellow. It was not a water-baby, alas ! but it was a 
lobster; and a very distinguished lobster he was; for 
he had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great 
mark of distinction in lobsterdom, and no more to 
be bought for money than a good conscience or the 
Victoria Cross. 

Tom had never seen a lobster before ; and he was 
mightily taken with this one ; for he thought him the 
most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had ever 
seen ; and there he was not far wrong ; for all the 
ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all 











144 


THE WATER- BABIES 


CHAP. 


the fanciful men, in the world,, with all the old 
German bogy-painters into the bargain, could never 
invent, if all their wits were boiled into one, anything 
so curious, and so ridiculous, as a lobster. 

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged ; 
and Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the 
seaweed with his knobbed claw, while he cut up 
salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his 
mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And 
always the little barnacles threw out their casting-nets 
and swept the water, and came in for their share of 
whatever there was for dinner. 

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired 
himself off — snap ! like the leap-frogs which you make 
cut of a goose’s breast-bone. Certainly he took the 
most wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For, if he 
wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what 
do you think he did ? If he had gone in head 
foremost, of course he could not have turned round. 
So he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long 
horns, which carry his sixth sense in their tips (and 
nobody knows what that sixth sense is), straight down 
his back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till 
they almost came out of their sockets, and then made 
ready, present, fire, snap! — and away he went, pop 
into the hole ; and peeped out and twiddled his 
whiskers, as much as to say, “ You couldn’t do that.” 

Tom asked him about water- babies. “Yes,” he 
said. He had seen them often. But he did not think 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


145 


much of them. They were meddlesome little creatures, 
that went about helping fish and shells which got into 
scrapes. Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to 
be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a 
shell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough 
in the world to take care of himself. 

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not 
very civil to Tom; and you will hear how he had to 
alter his mind before he was done, as conceited people 
generally have. But he was so funny, and Tom so 
lonely, that he could not quarrel with him ; and they 
used to sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours. 

And about this time there happened to Tom a 
very strange and important adventure — so important, 
indeed, that he was very near never finding the water- 
babies at all ; and I am sure you would have been 
sorry for that. 

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white 
lady all this while. At least, here she comes, looking 
like a clean white good little darling, as she always 
was, and always will be. For it befell in the pleasant 
short December days, when the wind always blows 
from the south-west, till Old Father Christmas comes 
and spreads the great white table-cloth, ready for 
little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas 
dinner of crumbs — it befell (to go on) in the pleasant 
December days, that Sir John was so busy hunting 
that nobody at home could get a word out of him. 
Four days a week he hunted, and very good sport he 
I, 


146 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


had ; and the other two he went to the bench and the 
board of guardians, and very good justice he did ; and, 
when he got home in time, he dined at five ; for he 
hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the 
hunting season, which forces a man to make interest 
with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as he 
comes in, and so spoil his appetite, and then sleep in 
an arm-chair in his bedroom, all stiff and tired, for two 
or three hours before he can get his dinner like a 
gentleman. And do you be like Sir John, my dear 
little man, when you are your own master ; and, if 
you want either to read hard or ride hard, stick to the 
good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at eight and 
dinner at five ; by which you may get two days’ work 
out of one. But, of course, if you find a fox at three 
in the afternoon and run him till dark, and leave off 
twenty miles from home, why you must wait for your 
dinner till you can get it, as better men than you have 
done. Only see that, if you go hungry, your horse 
does not ; but give him his warm gruel and beer, and 
take him gently home, remembering that good horses 
don’t grow on the hedge like blackberries. 

It befell (to go on a second time) that Sir John, 
hunting all day, and dining at five, fell asleep every 
evening, and snored so terribly that all the windows 
in Harthover shook, and the soot fell down the 
chimneys. Whereon My Lady, being no more able to 
get conversation out of him than a song out of a dead 
nightingale, determined to go off and leave him, and 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


147 


the doctor, and Captain Swinger the agent, to snore in 
concert every evening to their hearts* content. So 
she started for the seaside with all the children, in 
order to put herself and them into condition by mild 
applications of iodine. She might as well have stayed 
at home and used Parry’s liquid horse-blister, for there 
was plenty of it in the stables ; and then she would 



have saved her money, and saved the chance, also, of 
making all the children ill instead of well (as hundreds 
are made), by taking them to some nasty smelling 
un drained lodging, and then wondering how they 
caught scarlatina and diphtheria : but people won’t be 
wise enough to understand that till they are dead of 
bad smells, and then it will be too late ; besides, you 
see. Sir John did certainly snore very loud. 


148 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


But where she went to nobody must know, for fear 
young ladies should begin to fancy that there are 
water-babies there l and so hunt and howk after them 
(besides raising the price of lodgings), and keep them 
in aquariums, as the ladies at Pompeii (as you may 
see by the paintings) used to keep Cupids in cages. 
But nobody ever heard that they starved the Cupids, 
or let them die of dirt and neglect, as English young 
ladies do by the poor sea- beasts. So nobody must 
know where My Lady went. Letting water-babies 
die is as bad as taking singing birds’ eggs ; for, though 
there are thousands, ay, millions, of both of them in 
the world, yet there is not one too many. 

Now it befell that, on the very shore, and over the 
very rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend the 
lobster, there walked one day the little white lady, 
Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed — 
Professor Ptthmllnsprts. 

His mother was a Dutchwoman, and therefore he 
was born at Curasao (of course you have learnt your 
geography, and therefore know why) ; and his father 
a Pole, and therefore he was brought up at Petro- 
paulowski (of course you have learnt your modern 
politics, and therefore know why) : but for all that he 
was as thorough an Englishman as ever coveted his 
neighbour’s goods. And his name, as I said, was 
Professor Ptthmllnsprts, which is a very ancient and 
noble Polish name. 

He was, as I said, a very great naturalist, and 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


149 


chief professor of Necrobioneopalmonthydrochthonanthro- 
popithekology in the new university which the king 
of the Cannibal Islands had founded ; and, being a 
member of the Acclimatisation Society, he had come 
here to collect all the nasty things which he could 



find on the coast of England, and turn them loose 
round the Cannibal Islands, because they had not 
nasty things enough there to eat what they left. 

But he was a very worthy kind good-natured little 
old gentleman ; and very fond of children (for he waa 


150 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


not the least a cannibal himself) ; and very good to 
all the world as long as it was good to him. Only 
one fault he had, which cock-robins have likewise, as 
you may see if you look out of the nursery window — 
that, when any one else found a curious worm, he 
would hop round them, and peck them, and set up his 
tail, and bristle up his feathers, just as a cock-robin 
would ; and declare that he found the worm first ; and 
that it was his worm ; and, if not, that then it was 
not a worm at all. 

He had met Sir John at Scarborough, or Fleetwood, 
or somewhere or other (if you don’t care where, 
nobody else does), and had made acquaintance with 
him, and become very fond of his children. How, 
Sir John knew nothing about sea-cockyoly birds, and 
cared less, provided the fishmonger sent him good fish 
for dinner ; and My Lady knew as little : but she 
thought it proper that the children should know 
something. For in the stupid old times, you must 
understand, children were taught to know one thing, 
and to know it well ; but in these enlightened new 
times they are taught to know a little about every- 
thing, and to know it all ill; which is a great deal 
pleasanter and easier, and therefore quite right. 

So Elbe and he were walking on the rocks, and 
he was showing her about one in ten thousand of all 
the beautiful and curious things which are to be seen 
there. But little Elbe was not satisfied with them at 
all. She bleed much better to play with live children, 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE' FOR A LAND-BABY 


151 


or even with dolls, which she could pretend were 
alive; and at last she said honestly, “ I don’t care 
aV'-'- all these things, because they can’t play with 



me. or talk to me. If there were little children now 
in the water, as there used to he, and I could see them, 
I should like that.” 



152 


THE WATER -BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ Children in the water, you strange little duck ?” 
said the professor. 

“Yes,” said Ellie. “I know there u 
children in the water, and mermaids too, and 
I saw them all in a picture at home, of a be*-- 
lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and bah 
flying round her, and one sitting in her lap ; and the 
mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen 
trumpeting on conch - shells ; and it is called ‘The 
Triumph of Galatea and there is a burning mountain 
in the picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, 
and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and 
dreamt about it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful, 
that it must be true. ’ 

But the professor had not the least notion of 
allowing that things were true, merely because people 
thought them beautiful. For at that rate, he said, 
the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a fine 
thing to eat their grandpapas, because they thought 
it an ugly thing to put them underground. The 
professor, indeed, went further, and held that no man 
was forced to believe anything to be true, but what he 
could see, hear, taste, or handle. 

He held very strange theories about a good many 
things. He had even got up once at the British 
Association, and declared that apes had hippopotamus 
majors in their brains just as men have. Which was 
a shocking thing to say ; for, if it were so, what would 
become of the faith, hope, and charity, of immortal 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


153 


millions ? You may think that there are other more 
important differences between you and an ape, such 
as being able to speak, and make machines, and know 
right from wrong, and say your prayers, and other 
little matters of that kind ; but that is a child’s fancy, 
my dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great 
hippopotamus test. If you have a hippopotamus 
major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had 
four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the 
apes of all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is 
ever discovered in one single ape’s brain, nothing will 
save your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- 
great - great - great - greater - greatest - grandmother from 
having been an ape too. No, my dear little man; 
always remember that the one true, certain, final, and 
all-important difference between you and an ape is, 
that you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, 
and it has none ; and that, therefore, to discover one 
in its brain will be a very wrong and dangerous thing, 
at which every one will be very much shocked, as we 
may suppose they were at the professor. — Though 
really, after all, it don’t much matter ; because — as 
Lord Dundreary and others would put it — nobody but 
men have hippopotamuses in their brains ; so, if a 
hippopotamus was discovered in an ape’s brain, why 
it would not be one, you know, but something else. 

But the professor had gone, I am sorry to say, even 
further than that; for he had read at the British 
Association at Melbourne, Australia, in the year 1999, 


154 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


a paper which assured every one who found himself 
the better or wiser for the news, that there were not, 
never had been, and could not be, any rational or 
half -rational beings except men, anywhere, any when, 
or anyhow ; that nymphs, satyrs, fauns, inui, dicarfs, 
trolls, elves, gnomes, fairies, brownies, nixes, wilis, Jcobolds, 
leprechaunes, cAiricaunes, banshees, will-o’-the-wisps, follets, 
lutins, magots, goblins, afrits, marids, jinns, ghouls, peris, 
deevs, angels, archangels, imps, bogies, or worse, were 
nothing at all, and pure bosh and wind. And he had 
to get up very early in the morning to prove that, 
and to eat his breakfast overnight ; but he did it, at 
least to his own satisfaction. Whereon a certain great 
divine, and a very clever divine was be, called him a 
regular Sadducee ; and probably he was quite right. 
Whereon the professor, in return, called him a regular 
Pharisee ; and probably he was quite right too. But 
they did not quarrel in the least ; for, when men are 
men of the world, hard words run off them like water 
off a duck’s back. So the professor and the divine 
met at dinner that evening, and sat together on the 
sofa afterwards for an hour, and talked over the state 
of female labour on the antarctic continent (for nobody 
talks shop after his claret), and each vowed that the 
other was the best company he ever met in his life. 
What an advantage it is to be men of the world ! 

From all which you may guess that the professor 
was not the least of little Fdlie’s opinion. So he 
gave her a succinct compendium of his famous paper 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


155 


at the British Association, in a form suited for the 
youthful mind. But, as we have gone over his 
arguments against water-babies once already,, which is 
once too often, we will not repeat them here. 

Now little Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; 
for, instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmlln- 
sprts’ arguments, she only asked the same question 
over again. 

“But why are there not water-babies?” 

I trust and hope that it was because the professor 
trod at that moment on the edge of a very sharp 
mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he 
answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a 
scientific man, and therefore ought to have known 
that he couldn’t know ; and that he was a logician, 
and therefore ought to have known that he could not 
ptove a universal negative — I say, I trust and hope 
it was because the mussel hurt his corn, that the 
professor answered quite sharply : 

“ Because there ain’t.” 

Which was not even good English, my dear little 
boy ; for, as you must know from Aunt Agitate’s 
Arguments, the professor ought to have said, if he was 
so angry as to say anything of the kind — Because 
there are not : or are none : or are none of them ; or 
(if he had been reading Aunt Agitate too) because 
they do not exist. 

And he groped with his net under the weeds so 
violently, that, as it befell, he caught poor little Tom. 


156 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out 
quickly, with Tom all entangled in the meshes. 

“Dear me !” he cried. “What a large pink Holo- 
thurian ; with hands, too ! It must be connected with 
Synapta.” 

And he took him out. 

“ It has actually eyes !” he cried. “ Why, it must 
be a Cephalopod ! This is most extraordinary !” 

“No, I ain’t !” cried Tom, as loud as he could ; for 
he did not like to be called bad names. 

“It is a water-baby !” cried Elbe ; and of course 
it was. 

“ Water-fiddlesticks, my dear !” said the professor ; 
and he turned away sharply. 

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby: 
and he had said a moment ago that there were none. 
What was he to do ? 

He would have liked, of course, to have taken 
Tom home in a bucket. He would not have put him 
in spirits. Of course not. He would have kept him 
alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old 
gentleman), and written a book about him, and given 
him two long names, of which the first would have 
said a little about Tom, and the second all about 
himself ; for of course he would have called him 
Hydrotecuon Ptthmllnsprtsianum, or some other long- 
name like that ; for they are forced to call everything 
by long names now, because they have used up all the 
short ones, ever since they took to making nine species 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


157 


out of one. But — what would all the learned men 

* 

say to him after his speech at the British Association ? 
And what would Ellie say, after what he had just told 
her ? 

There was a wise old heathen once, who said, 
“Maxima debetur pueris reverentia” — The greatest 
reverence is due to children ; that is, that grown 
people should never say or do anything wrong before 
children, lest they should set them a bad example. — 
Cousin Cramchild says it means, “ The greatest respect- 
fulness is expected from little boys.” But he was raised 
in a country where little boys are not expected to be 
respectful, because all of them are as good as the 
President : — Well, every one knows his own concerns 
best; so perhaps they are. But poor Cousin Cram- 
child, to do him justice, not being of that opinion, and 
having a moral mission, and being no scholar to speak 
of, and hard up for an authority — why, it was a very 
great temptation for him. But some people, and I 
am afraid the professor was one of them, interpret that 
in a more strange, curious, one-sided, left-handed, 
topsy-turvy, inside -out, behind -before fashion than 
even Cousin Cramchild ; for they make it mean, that 
you must show your respect for children, by never 
confessing yourself in the wrong to them, even if you 
know that you are so, lest they should lose confidence 
in their elders. 

Now, if the professor had said to Ellie, “ Yes, my 
darling, it is a water-baby, and a very wonderful thing 


158 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CliAP. 


it is ; and it shows how little I know of the wonders 
of nature, in spite of forty years’ honest labour. I 
was just telling you that there could be no such 
creatures ; and, behold ! here is one come to confound 
my conceit and show me that Nature can do, and has 
done, beyond all that man’s poor fancy can imagine. 
So, let us thank the Maker, and Inspirer, and Lord of 
Nature for all His wonderful and glorious works, and 
try and find out something about this one;” — I think 
that, if the professor had said that, little Ellie would 
have believed him more firmly, and respected him 
more deeply, and loved him better, than ever she had 
done before. But he was of a different opinion. He 
hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, and 
yet he half wished he never had caught him ; and at 
last he quite longed to get rid of him. So he turned 
away and poked Tom with his finger, for want of 
anything better to do ; and said carelessly, “ My dear 
little maid, you must have dreamt of water-babies last 
night, your head is so full of them.” 

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and 
unspeakable fright all the while ; and had kept as 
quiet as he could, though he was called a Holothurian 
and a Ceplialopod ; for it was fixed in his little head 
that if a man with clothes on caught him, he might 
put clothes on him too, and make a dirty black 
chimney-sweep of him again. But, when the professor 
poked him, it was more than he could bear; and, 
between fright and rage, he turned to bay as valiantly 


IV A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 159 

as a mouse in a corner, and bit the professor’s finger 
till it bled. 

“ Oh ! ah ! yah !” cried he ; and glad of an excuse 
to be rid of Tom, dropped him on to the seaweed, and 



thence he dived into the water and was gone in a 
moment. 

“ But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak 1” 
tfried Ellie. “Ah, it is gone!” And she jumped 




160 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


down off the rock to try and catch Tom before he 
slipped into the sea. 

Too late ! and what was worse, as she sprang down, 
she slipped, and fell some six feet with her head on a 
sharp rock, and lay quite still. 

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken 
her, and called to her, and cried over her, for he loved 
her very much : but she would not waken at all. So 
he took her up in his arms and carried her to her 
governess, and they all went home ; and little Ellie 
was put to bed, and lay there quite still ; only now 
and then she woke up and called out about the water- 
baby : but no one knew what she meant, and the 
professor did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell. 

And, after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies 
came flying in at the window and brought her such a 
pretty pair of wings that she could not help putting 
them on ; and she flew with them out of the window, 
and over the land, and over the sea, and up through 
the clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her 
for a very long while. 

And this is wdiy they say that no one has ever yet 
seen a water-baby. For my part, I believe that the 
naturalists get dozens of them when they are out 
dredging ; but they say nothing about them, and throw 
them overboard again, for fear of spoiling their theories. 
But, you see the professor was found out, as every one 
is in due time. A very terrible old fairy found the 
professor out ; she felt his bumps, and cast his nativity, 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


161 


and took the lunars of him carefully inside and out; 
and so she knew what he would do as well as if she 
had seen it in a print book, as they say in the dear 
old west country ; and he did it ; and so he was found 
out beforehand, as everybody always is ; and the old 
fairy will find out the naturalists some day, and put 
them in the Times , and then on whose side will the 
laugh be ? 

So the old fairy took him in hand very severely 
there and then. But she says she is always most 
severe with the best people, because there is most 
chance of curing them, and therefore they are the 
patients who pay her best ; for she has to. work on 
the same salary as the Emperor of China’s physicians 
(it is a pity that all do not), no cure, no pay. 

So she took the poor professor in hand : and 
because he was not content with things as they are, 
she filled his head with things as they are not, to try 
if he would like them better ; and because he did not 
choose to believe in a water- baby when he saw it, she 
made him believe in worse things than water-babies — 
in unicorns , fire- drakes, manticoras , basilisks , amphis- 
bcenas , griffins, phoenixes, rocs, ores, dog -headed men, 
three-headed dogs, three-bodied geryons, and other pleasant 
creatures, which folks think never existed yet, and 
which folks hope never will exist, though they know 
nothing about the matter, and never will ; and these 
creatures so upset, terrified, flustered, aggravated, con- 
fused, astounded, horrified, and totally flabbergasted 
M 


162 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the poor professor that the doctors said that he was 
out of his wits for three months ; and perhaps they 
were right, as they are now and then. 

So all the doctors in the county were called in to 
make a report on his case ; and of course every one 
of them flatly contradicted the other : else what use 
is there in being men of science ? But at last the 
majority agreed on a report in the true medical 
language, one half bad Latin, the other half worse 
Greek, and the rest what might have been English, if 
they had only learnt to write it. And this is the 
beginning thereof — 

“ The subanhypaposupernal anastomoses of peritomic 
diacellnrite in the encephalo digital region of the distin- 
guished individual of whose symptomatic phenomena we 
had the melancholy honour {subsequently to a preliminary 
diagnostic inspection) of making an inspectorial diagnosis , 
presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and antino- 
mian diathesis knoivn as Bwnpster hausen’s blue follicles , 
we proceeded ” — 

But what they proceeded to do My Lady never 
knew ; for she was so frightened at the long words 
that she ran for her life, and locked herself into her 
bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words 
and strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she 
said, was bad company enough : but what was a boa 
constrictor made of paving stones ? 

“ It was quite shocking ! What can they think is 
the matter with him ?” said she to the old nurse. 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


163 


“ That his wit’s just addled ; may be wi’ unbelief 
and heathenry/’ quoth she. 

“ Then why can’t they say so ? ” 

And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and 
the vales re-echoed — “Why indeed?” But the 
doctors never heard them. 

So she made Sir John write to the Times to com- 
mand the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time 
being to put a tax on long words ; — 

A light tax on words over three syllables, which 
are necessary evils, like rats : but, like them, must be 
kept down judiciously. 

A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as hetero- 
doxy, spontaneity, spiritualism . ., spuriosity, etc. 

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope 
no one will wish to see any examples), a totally pro- 
hibitory tax. 

And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived 
from three or more languages at once ; words derived 
from two languages having become so common that 
there was no more hope of rooting out them than of 
rooting out peth-winds. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar 
and a man of sense, jumped at the notion ; for he saw 
in it the one and only plan for abolishing Schedule D : 
but when he brought in his bill, most of the Irish 
members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch 
likewise, opposed it most strongly, on the ground that 
in a free country no man was bound either to under- 


164 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


stand himself or to let others understand him. So 
the bill fell through on the first reading; and the 
Chancellor, being a philosopher, comforted himself 
with the thought that it was not the first time that 
a woman had hit off a grand, idea and the men turned 
up their stupid noses thereat. 

Now the doctors had it all their own way ; and to 
work they went in earnest, and they gave the poor 
professor divers and sundry medicines, as prescribed 
by the ancients and moderns, from Hippocrates to 
Eeuchtersleben, as below, viz. — 

1. Hellebore, to wit — 

Hellebore of JEta. 

Hellebore of Galatia. 

Hellebore of Sicily. 

And all other Hellebores , after the method 
of the Helleborising Helleborists of the 
Helleboric era. But that would not 
do. Bumpsterhausen s blue follicles 
would not stir an inch out of his 
encephalo digital region. 

2. Trying to find out what was the matter with him , 
after the method of 

Hippocrates, 

Aretceus, 

Celsus, 

Ccelius Aurelianus , 

And Galen. 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


165 


But they found that a great deal too much trouble, 
as most people have since ; and so had recourse to — 

3. Borage. 

Cauteries. 

Boring a hole in his head to let out fumes, which 
(says Gordonius) “ will, without doubt, do much good.” 
But it didn’t. 

Bezoar stone. 

Diamargaritum. 

A ram’s brain boiled in spice. 

Oil of wormwood. 

Water of Nile. 

Capers. 

Good wine ( but there was none to be got). 

The water of a smith’s forge. 

Hops. 

Ambergris. 

Mandrake pillows. 

Dormouse fat. 

Hares’ ears. 

Starvation. 

Camphor. 

Salts and senna. 

Musk. 

Opium. 

Strait-waistcoats. 

Bullyings. 

Bumpings. 


166 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Blisterings. 

Bleedings. 

Bucketings with cold water. 

Knockings down. 

Kneeling on his chest till they broke it in, 
etc. etc. ; after the mediaeval or monkish 
method: but that would not do. Bump- 
sterhausens blue follicles stuck there still. 

Then — 

4. Coaxing. 

Kissing. 

Champagne and turtle. 

Bed herrings and soda water. 

Good advice. 

Gardening. 

Croquet. 

Musical soirees. 

Aunt Sally. 

Mild tobacco. 

The Saturday Review. 

A carriage with outriders, etc. etc. 

After the modern method. But that would not do. 
And if he had but been a convict lunatic, and had 
shot at the Queen, killed all his creditors to avoid 
paying them, or indulged in any other little amiable 
eccentricity of that kind, they would have given him 
in addition — 

The healthiest situation in England, on Easthamp- 
stead Plain. 


IV A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 167 

Free run of Windsor Forest. 

The Times every morning. 

A double-barrelled gun and pointers, and leave to 
shoot three Wellington College boys a week (not more) 
in case black game was scarce. 

But as he was neither mad enough nor bad enough 
to be allowed such luxuries, they grew desperate, and 
fell into bad ways, viz. — 

5. Suffumigations of sulphur. 

Herrwiggius Ms “ Incomparable drink for 
madmen : ” 

Only they could not find out what it was. 

Suffumigation of the liver of the fish * "' c * 
Only they had forgotten its name, so Dr. Gray could 
not well procure them a specimen. 

Metallic tractors. 

Holloway’s Ointment. 

Electro-biology. 

Valentine Greatrakes his Stroking Cure. 
Spirit-rapping. 

Holloway’s Pills. 

Table-turning. 

Morison’s Pills. 

Homoeopathy. 

Parr’s Life Pills. 

Mesmerism. 

Pure Bosh. 

Exorcisms , for which they read Maleus 


168 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Maleficarum, Nideri Formicarium, Delrio, 
Wierus, etc. 

But could not get one that mentioned water-babies. 

Hydropathy. 

Madame Rachel's Elixir of Youth. 

The Poughkeepsie Seer his Prophecies. 

The distilled liquor of addle eggs. 

Pyropathy. 

As successfully employed by the old inquisitors to 
cure the malady of thought, and now by the Persian 
Mollahs to cure that of rheumatism. 

Geopathy, or burying him. 

Atmopathy , or steaming him. 

Sympathy , after the method of Basil Valen- 
tine his Triumph of Antimony , and Ken- 
elm Digby his Weapon- salve, which some 
call a hair of the dog that bit him. 

Hermopathy , or pouring mercury down his 
throat to move the animal spirits. 

Meteoropathy , or going up to the moon to look 
for his lost wits, as Ruggiero did for 
Orlando Furioso’s : only, having no hippo- 
griff, they were forced to use a balloon; 
and, falling into the North Sea, were 
picked up by a Yarmouth herring-boat, 
and came home much the wiser, and all 
over scales. 

Antipathy, or using him like “ a man and a 
brother 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


169 


Apathy, or doing nothing at all. 

With all other ipathies and opathies which 
Noodle has invented, and Foodie tried, since 
black-fellows chipped flints at Abbeville — 
ivhich is a considerable time ago, to judge 
by the Great Exhibition. 

But nothing would do ; for he screamed and cried 
all day for a water-baby, to come and drive away the 
monsters ; and of course they did not try to find one, 
because they did not believe in them, and were think- 
ing of nothing but Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles ; 
having, as usual, set the cart before the horse, and 
taken the effect for the cause. 

So they were forced at last to let the poor professor 
ease his mind by writing a great book, exactly contrary 
to . all his old opinions ; in which he p'roved that the 
moon was made of green cheese, and that all the mites 
in it (which you may see sometimes quite plain through 
a telescope, if you will only keep the lens dirty enough, 
as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery) are nothing in 
the world but little babies, who are hatching and 
swarming up there in millions, ready to come down 
into this world whenever children want a new little 
brother or sister. 

Which must be a mistake, for this one reason : 
that, there being no atmosphere round the moon (though 
some one or other says there is, at least on the other 
side, and that he has been round at the back of it to 


170 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


see, and found that the moon was just the shape of a 
Bath bun, and so wet that the man in the moon went 
about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and Cording’s 
hoots, spearing eels and sneezing) ; that, therefore, I 



say, there being no atmosphere, there can be no evap- 
oration ; and therefore, the dew-point can never fall 
below Tl’o 0 below zero of Fahrenheit: and, therefore, 
it cannot be cold enough there about four o’clock in 
the morning to condense the babies’ mesenteric apoph- 


IV 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


171 


thegms into their left ventricles; and, therefore, they 
can never catch the hooping-cough ; and if they do not 
have hooping-cough, they cannot be babies at all ; and, 
therefore, there are no babies in the moon. — Q.E.D. 

Which may seem a roundabout reason; and so, 
perhaps, it is : but you will have heard worse ones in 
your time, and from better men than you are. 

But one thing is certain ; that, when the good old 
doctor got his book written, he felt considerably relieved 



from Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles, and a few things 
infinitely worse ; to wit, from pride and vain-glory, 
and from blindness and hardness of heart ; which are 
the true causes of Bumpsterhausen’s blue follicles, and 
of a good many other ugly things besides. Whereon 
the foul flood -w T ater in his brains ran down, and 
cleared to a fine coffee colour, such as fish like to 
rise in, till very fine clean fresh -run fish did begin 
to rise in his brains ; and he caught two or three of 
them (which is exceedingly fine sport, for brain rivers), 
and anatomised them carefully, and never mentioned 


172 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. IV 


what he found out from them, except to little chil- 
dren ; and became ever after a sadder and a wiser 
man ; which is a very good thing to become, my dear 
little hoy, even though one has to pay a heavy price 
for the blessing. 



















































* 


















































“ Stem Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead’s most benignant grace ; 

Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.” 

Wordsworth, Ode to Duty . 


CHAPTER Y 



UT what became 
of little Tom ? 

He slipped 
away off the rocks 
into the water, as 
I said before. 
But he could 
not help think- 
ing of little 
Ellie. He did 
not remember 
who she was ; 
but he knew 
that she was 
a little girl, 
though she was a hundred times as big as he. That 
is not surprising : size has nothing to do with kindred. 
A tiny weed may be first cousin to a great tree ; and 
a little dog like Yick knows that Lioness is a dog too, 
though she is twenty times larger than herself. So 
Tom knew that Ellie was a little girl, and thought 
about her all that day, and longed to have had her 


176 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


to play with ; but he had very soon to think of some- 
thing else. And here is the account of what happened 
to him, as it was published next morning in the Water- 
proof Gazette, on the finest watered paper, for the use 
of the great fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads 
the news very carefully every morning, and especially 
the police cases, as you will hear very soon. 

He was going along the rocks in three -fathom 
water, watching the pollock catch prawns, and the 
wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and all, 
when he saw a round cage of green withes ; and inside 
it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend 
the lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs. 

“ What, have you been naughty, and have they put 
you in the lock-up ? ” asked Tom. 

The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, 
but he was too much depressed in spirits to argue ; so 
he only said, “ I can’t get out.” 

“ Why did you get in ? ” 

“ After that nasty piece of dead fish.” He had 
thought it looked and smelt very nice when he was 
outside, and so it did, for a lobster : but now he turned 
round and abused it because he was angry with himself. 

“ Where did you get in ? ” 

“Through that round hole at the top.” 

“ Then why don’t you get out through it ? ” 

“ Because I can’t : ” and the lobster twiddled his 
horns more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to 
confess. 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


177 


“ I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, 
and sideways, at least four thousand times ; and I 
can’t get out : I always get up underneath there, and 
can’t find the hole.” 

Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than 
the lobster, he saw plainly enough what was the 
matter ; as you may if you will look at a lobster-pot. 

“ Stop a bit,” said Tom. “ Turn your tail up to me, 
and I’ll pull you through hindforemost, and then you 
won’t stick in the spikes.” 

But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he 
couldn’t hit the hole. Like a great many fox-hunters, 
he was very sharp as long as he was in his own 
country ; but as soon as they get out of it they 
lose their heads ; and so the lobster, so to speak, lost 
his tail. 

Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, 
till he caught hold of him ; and then, as was to be 
expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him in head fore- 
most. 

“ Hullo ! here is a pretty business,” said Tom. 
“ Now take your great claws, and break the points off 
those spikes, and then we shall both get out easily.” 

“ Dear me, I never thought of that,” said the 
lobster ; “ and after all the experience of life that I 
have had ! ” 

You see, experience is of very little good unless a 
man, ‘or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it. 
For a good many people, like old Polonius, have seen 
N 


178 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. V 


all the world, and yet remain little better than children 
after all. 

But they had not got half the spikes away when 
they saw a great dark cloud over them : and lo, and 
behold, it was the otter. 

How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom. 
“ Yar ! ” said she, “ you little meddlesome wretch, I 
have you now ! I will serve you out for telling the 
salmon where I was ! ” And she crawled all over the 
pot to get in. 

Tom was horribly frightened, and still more fright- 
ened when she found the hole in the top, and squeezed 
herself right down through it, all eyes and teeth. But 
no sooner was her head inside than valiant Mr. Lobster 
caught her by the nose and held on. 

And there they were all three in the pot, rolling 
over and over, and very tight packing it was. And 
the lobster tore at the otter, and the otter tore at the 
lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor Tom till 
he had no breath left in his body; and I don’t know what 
would have happened to him if he had not at last got 
on the otter’s back, and safe out of the hole. 

He was right glad when he got out : but he would 
not desert his friend who had saved him ; and th*> 
first time he saw his tail uppermost he caught hold of 
it, and pulled with all his might. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“ Come along,” said Tom ; “ don’t you see she is 
dead ? ” And so she was, quite drowned and dead. 










180 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


And that was the end of the wicked otter. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“ Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud/’ 
cried Tom, “ or the fisherman will catch you ! ” And 



that was true, for Tom felt some one above beginning 
to haul up the pot. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

Tom saw the. fisherman haul him up to the boat- 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


181 


side, and thought it was all up with him. But when 
Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious 
and tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his hand, 
and out of the pot, and safe into the sea. But he left 
his knobbed claw behind him ; for it never came into 
his stupid head to let go after all, so he just shook his 
claw off as the easier method. It was something of 
a bull, that ; but you must know the lobster was an 
Irish lobster, and was hatched off Island Magee at the 
mouth of Belfast Lough. 

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of 
letting go. He said very determinedly that it was a 
point of honour among lobsters. And so it is, as the 
Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost — eight 
or nine hundred years ago, of course; for if it had 
happened lately it would be personal to mention it. 

For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard 
chair, in a grand furred gown, with a gold chain round 
his neck, hearing one policeman after another come in 
and sing, “ What shall we do with the drunken sailor, 
so early in the morning ? ” and answering them each 
exactly alike : 

“ Put him in the round house till he gets sober, so 
ea rly in the morning ” — 

That, when it was over, he jumped up, and played 
leap-frog with the town-clerk till he burst his buttons, 
and then had his luncheon, and burst some more 
buttons, and then said: “It is a low spring-tide; I 
shall go out this afternoon and cut my capers.” 


182 


THE WATER-BABIES 


OHAP. 


Now he did not mean to cut such capers as you 
eat with boiled mutton. It was the commandant of 
artillery at Yaletta who used to amuse himself with 
cutting them, and who stuck upon one of the bastions 
a notice, “ No one allowed to cut capers here but me,” 
which greatly edified the midshipmen in port, and the 
Maltese on the Nix Mangiare stairs. But all that the 
mayor meant was that he would go and have an after- 
noon’s fun, like any schoolboy, and catch lobsters with 
an iron hook. 

So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he 
looked. And when he came to a certain crack in the 
rocks he was so excited that, instead of putting in his 
hook, he put in his hand ; and Mr. Lobster was at 
home, and caught him by the finger, and held on. 

“ Yah ! ” said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he 
dared : but the more he pulled, the more the lobster 
pinched, till he was forced to be quiet. 

Then he tried to get his hook in with his other 
hand ; but the hole was too narrow. 

Then he pulled again ; but he could not stand the 
pain. 

Then he shouted and bawled for help : but there 
was no one nearer him than the men-of-war inside the 
breakwater. 

Then he began to turn a little pale ; for the tide 
flowed, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he turned quite white ; for the tide was up 
to his knees, and still the lobster held on. 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


183 


Then he thought of cutting off his finger ; but he 
wanted two things to do it with — courage and a knife; 
and he had got neither. 

Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up 
to his waist, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he thought over all the naughty things he 
ever had done ; all the sand which he had put in the 
sugar, and the sloe-leaves in the tea, and the water in 
the treacle, and the salt in the tobacco (because his 
brother was a brewer, and a man must help his own 
kin). 

Then he turned quite blue ; for the tide was up to 
his breast, and still the lobster held on. 

Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the 
said naughty things which he had done, and promised 
to mend his life, as too many do when they think they 
have no life left to mend. Whereby, as they fancy, 
they make a very cheap bargain. But the old fairy 
with the birch rod soon undeceives them. 

And then he grew all colours at once, and turned 
up his eyes like a duck in thunder ; for the water was 
up to his chin, and still the lobster held on. 

And then came a man-of-war’s boat round the 
Mewstone, and saw his head sticking up out of the 
water. One said it was a keg of brandy, and another 
that it was a cocoa-nut, and another that it was a buoy 
loose, and another that it was a black diver, and 
wanted to fire at it, which would not have been 
pleasant for the mayor : but just then such a yell 


184 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


came out of a great hole in the middle of it that the 
midshipman in charge guessed what it was, and bade 

pull up to it as 
fast as they could. 
So somehow or 
other the Jack- 
tars got the lobster 
out, and set the 
mayor free, and 
put him ashore 
at the Barbican. 
He never went 
lobster - catching 
again; and we will 
hope he put no 
more salt in the tobacco, not even to sell his brother’s 
beer. 

And that is the story of the Mayor of Plymouth, 
which has two advantages — first, that of being quite 
true ; and second, that of having (as folks say all good 
stories ought to have) no moral whatsoever : no more, 
indeed, has any part of this book, because it is a fairy 
tale, you know. 

And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing; 
for he had not left the lobster five minutes before he 
came upon a water-baby. 

A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, 
very busy about a little point of rock. And when it 
saw Tom it looked up for a moment, and then cried, 



V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


185 


“ Why, you are not one of us. You are a new baby i 
Oh, how delightful ! 

And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they 
hugged and kissed each other for ever so long, they 
did not know why. But they did not want any intro- 
ductions there under the water. 

At last Tom said, “ Oh, where have you been all 
this while ? I have been looking for you so long, and 
I have been so lonely.” , 

“We have been here for days and days. There 
are hundreds of us about the rocks. How was it you 
did not see us, or hear us when we sing and romp 
every evening before we go home ? ” 

Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said : 

“ Well, this is wonderful ! I have seen things just 
like you again and again, but I thought you were 
shells, or sea-creatures. I never took you for water- 
babies like myself.” 

Now, was not that very odd ? So odd, indeed, that 
you will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, 
and why Tom could never find a water-baby till after 
he had got the lobster out of the pot. And, if you 
will read this story nine times over, and then think 
for yourself, you will find out why. It is not good 
for little boys to be told everything, and never to 
be forced to use their own wits. They would learn, 
then, no more than they do at Dr. Dulcimer’s famous 
suburban establishment for the idler members of the 
youthful aristocracy, where the masters learn the 


186 


THE WATER- BABIES 


CHAP. 


lessons and the boys hear them — which saves a great 
deal of trouble — for the time being. 

“ Now/’ said the baby, “ come and help me, or I 
shall not have finished before my brothers and sisters 
come, and it is time to go home.” 

“ What shall I help you at ? ” 

“ At this poor dear little rock ; a great clumsy 
boulder came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked 
all its head off, and rubbed off all its flowers. And 
now I must plant it again with seaweeds, and coralline, 
and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little 
rock-garden on all the shore.” 

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, 
and smoothed the sand down round it, and capital fun 
they had till the tide began to turn. And then Tom 
heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing 
and shouting and romping ; and the noise they made 
was just like the noise of the ripple. So he knew that 
he had been hearing and seeing the water-babies all 
along ; only he did not know them, because his eyes 
and ears were not opened. 

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some 
bigger than Tom and some smaller, all in the neatest 
little white bathing dresses ; and when they found that 
he was a new baby, they hugged him and kissed him, 
and then put him in the middle and danced round him 
on the sand, and there was no one ever so happy as 
poor little Tom. 

“ Now then,” they cried all at once, “ we must come 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


187 


away home, we must come away home, or the tide will 
leave us dry. We have mended all the broken sea- 
weed, and put all, the rock-pools in Order, and planted 
all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will sec 
where the ugly storm swept in last week.” 

And this is the reason why the rock-pools * 
always so neat and clean; because the water-babi 
come inshore after every storm to sweep them out, ai 
comb them down, and put them all to rights again 

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and * 
sewers run into the sea instead of putting the stuL 
upon the fields like thrifty reasonable souls ; or throw 
herrings’ heads and dead dog-fish, or any other refuse, 
into the water ; or in any way make a mess upon the 
clean shore — there the water-babies will not come, some- 
times not for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide 
anything smelly or foul), but leave the sea-anemones and 
the crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy 
sea has covered up all the dirt in soft mud and clean 
sand, where the water- babies can plant live cockles 
and whelks and razor -shells and sea-cucumbers and 
golden -combs, and make a pretty live garden again, 
after man’s dirt is cleared away. And that, I suppose, 
is the reason why there are no water-babies at any 
watering-place which I have ever seen. 

And where is the home of the water- babies ? In 
St. Brandan’s fairy isle. 

Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how 
he preached to the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry 


188 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


coast, he and five other hermits, till they were weary 
and longed to rest ? For the wild Irish would not 
listen to them, or come to confession, and to mass, but 
Uked better to brew potheen, and dance the pater o’pee, 
d knock each other over the head with shillelaghs, 

' x shoot each other from behind turf-dykes, and steal 
ch other’s cattle, and burn each other’s homes ; till 
Brandan and his friends were weary of them, for 
v would not learn to be peaceable Christians at all. 
so St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dun- 
nore, and looked over the tide-way roaring round the 
Blasquets, at the end of all the world, and away into 
the ocean, and sighed — “Ah that I had wings as a 
dove ! ” And far away, before the setting sun, he saw 
a blue fairy sea, and golden fairy islands, and he said, 
“ Those are the islands of the blest.” Then he and his 
friends got into a hooker, and sailed away and away to 
the westward, and were never heard of more. But the 
people who would not hear him were changed into 
gorillas, and gorillas they are until this day. 

And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to 
that fairy isle they found it overgrown with cedars and 
full of beautiful birds ; and he sat down under the 
cedars and preached to all the birds in the air. And 
they liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes 
in the sea ; and they came, and St. Brandan preached 
to them ; and the fishes told the water-babies, who live 
in the caves under the isle ; and they came up by 
hundreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got quite a 


Y 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


189 


neat little Sunday-school. And there he taught the 
water-babies for a great many hundred years, till his 
eyes grew too dim to see, and his beard grew so long 
that he dared not walk for fear of treading on it, and 
then he might have tumbled down. And at last he 
and the five hermits fell fast asleep under the cedar- 
shades, and there they sleep unto this day. But the 
fairies took to the water-babies, and taught them their 
lessons themselves. 

And some say that St. Brandan will awake and 
begin to teach the babies once more : but some think 
that he will sleep on, for better for worse, till the com- 
ing of the Cocqcigrues. But, on still clear summer 
evenings, when the sun sinks down into the sea, among 
golden cloud -capes and cloud -islands, and locks and 
friths of azure sky, the sailors fancy that they see, away 
to westward, St. Brandan’ s fairy isle. 

But whether men can see it or not, St. Brandan 's 
Isle once actually stood there ; a great land out in the 
ocean, which has sunk and sunk beneath the waves. 
Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told strange tales of 
the wise men who lived therein, and of the wars they 
fought in the old times. And from off that island 
came strange flowers, which linger still about this 
land : — the Cornish heath, and Cornish moneywort, 
and the delicate Venus’s hair, and the London -pride 
which covers the Kerry mountains, and the little pink 
butterwort of Devon, and the great blue butterwort of 
Ireland, and the Connemara heath, and the bristle-fern 


190 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


of the Turk waterfall, and many a strange plant more ; 
all fairy tokens left for wise men and good children 
from off St. Brandan’s Isle. 

Now when Tom got there, he found that the isle 
stood all on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. 
There were pillars of black basalt, like Staffa ; and 
pillars of green and crimson serpentine, like Kynance ; 
and pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow 
sandstone, like Livermead ; and there were blue grottoes 
like Capri, and white grottoes like Adelsberg; all 
curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and crim- 
son, green and brown ; and strewn with soft white 
sand, on which the water- babies sleep every night. 
But, to keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs 
picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them 
like so many monkeys ; while the rocks were covered 
with ten thousand sea-anemones, and corals and madre- 
pores, who scavenged the water all day long, and kept 
it nice and pure. But, to make up to them for having 
to do such nasty work, they were not left black and 
dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. No ; 
the fairies are more considerate and just than that, and 
have dressed them all in the most beautiful colours and 
patterns, till they look like vast flower-beds of gay 
blossoms. If you think I am talking nonsense, I can 
only say that it is true ; and that an old gentleman 
named Fourier used to say that we ought to do the 
same by chimney-sweeps and dustmen, and honour 
them instead of despising them ; and he was a very 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


191 


clever old gentleman : but, unfortunately for him and 
the world, as mad as a March hare. 

And, instead of watchmen and policemen to keep 
out nasty things at night, there were thousands and 
thousands of water-snakes, and most wonderful creatures 
they were. They were all named after the Nereids, 
the sea -fairies who took care of them, Eunice and 
Polynoe, Phyllodoce and Psamathe, and all the rest of 
the pretty darlings who swim round their Queen 
Amphitrite, and her car of cameo shell. They were 
dressed in green velvet, and black velvet, and purple 
velvet ; and were all jointed in rings ; and some of 
them had three hundred brains apiece, so that they 
must have been uncommonly shrewd detectives; and 
some had eyes in their tails ; and some had eyes in 
every joint, so that they kept a very sharp look-out ; 
and when they wanted a baby-snake, they just grew 
one at the end of their own tails, and when it was able 
to take care of itself it dropped off; so that they 
brought up their families very cheaply. But if any 
nasty thing came by, out they rushed upon it; and 
then out of each of their hundreds of feet there sprang 
a whole cutlers shop of 


Billhooks , 
Pickaxes , 
Forks , 


Scythes , 


Javelins , 
Lances , 


Penknives , 


Halberts , 

Gisarines, 

Poleaxes, 


192 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Rapiers, 

Sabres, 
Yataghans , 
Creeses, 

Ghoorka swords, 
Tucks, 


Fishhooks, 

Bradawls, 

Gimblets, 

Corkscrews, 

Pins, 


Needles, 


And so forth 


which stabbed, shot, poked, pricked, scratched, ripped, 
pinked, and crimped those naughty beasts so terribly 
that they had to run for their lives, or else be chopped 
into small pieces and be eaten afterwards. And, if 
that is not all, every word, true, then there is no faith 
in microscopes, and all is over with the Linnaean 
Society. 

And there were the water-babies in thousands, 
more than Tom, or you either, could count. — All the 
little children whom the good fairies take to, because 
their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who are 
untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come 
to grief by ill-usage or ignorance or neglect ; all the 
little children who are overlaid, or given gin when 
they are young, or are let to drink out of hot kettles, 
or to fall into the fire ; all the little children in alleys 
and courts, and tumble -down cottages, who die by 
fever, and cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and 
nasty complaints which no one has any business to 
have, and which no one will have some day, when folks 
have common sense ; and all the little children who 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


193 


have been killed by cruel masters and wicked soldiers ; 
they were all there, except, of course, the babes of 
Bethlehem who were killed by wicked King Herod ; 
for they were taken straight to heaven long ago, as 
everybody knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents. 

But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty 
tricks, and left off tormenting dumb animals now that 
he had plenty of playfellows to amuse him. Instead 
of that, I am sorry to say, he would meddle with the 
creatures, all but the water -snakes, for they would 
stand no nonsense. So he tickled the madrepores, to 
make them shut up ; and frightened the crabs, to make 
them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the 
tips of their eyes ; and put stones into the anemones’ 
mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner was 
coming. 

The other children warned him, and said, “ Take 
care what you are at. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is 
coming.” But Tom never heeded them, being quite 
riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one Friday 
morning early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed. 

A very tremendous lady she was; and when the 
children saw her they all stood in a row, very upright 
indeed, and smoothed down their bathing dresses, and 
put their hands behind them, just as if they were going 
to be examined by the inspector. 

And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, 
and no crinoline at all ; and a pair of large green spec- 
tacles, and a great hooked nose, hooked so much that 
0 ' 


194 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the bridge of it stood quite up above her eyebrows ; 
and under her arm she carried a great birch-rod. In- 
deed, she was so ugly that Tom was tempted to make 
faces at her : but did not ; for he did not admire the 
look of the birch-rod under her arm. 

And she looked at the children one by one, and 
seemed very much pleased with them, though she 
never asked them one question about how they were 
behaving ; and then began giving them all sorts of 
nice sea-things — sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea- 
bullseyes, sea-toffee; and to the very best of all she 
gave sea-ices, made out of sea-cows’ cream, which never 
melt under water. 

And, if you don’t quite believe me, then just think 
— What is more cheap and plentiful than sea-rock ? 
Then why should there not be sea -toffee as well ? 
And every one can find sea-lemons (ready quartered 
too) if they will look for them at low tide ; and sea- 
grapes too sometimes, hanging in bunches ; and, if you 
will go to Nice, you will find the fish-market full of 
sea-fruit, which they call “ frutta di mare : ” though I 
suppose they call them “ fruits de mer ” now, out of 
compliment to that most successful, and therefore most 
immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of in- 
heriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove 
their neighbours’ land-mark. And, perhaps, that is the 
very reason why the place is called Nice, because there 
are so many nice things in the sea there : at least, if 
it is not, it ought to be. 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


195 


Now little Tom watched all these sweet things 
given away, till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew 
as round as an owl’s. For he hoped that his turn 
would come at last; and so it did. For the lady 
called him up, and held out her fingers with something 
in them, and popped it into his mouth ; and, lo and 
behold, it was a nasty 
cold hard pebble. 

“ You are a very 
cruel woman,” said he, 
and began to whimper. 

“And you are a 
very cruel boy; who 
puts pebbles into the 
sea- anemones’ mouths, 
to take them in, and 
make them fancy that 
they had caught a 
good dinner! As you 
did to them, so I must 
do to you.” 

“ Who told you 
that ? ” said Tom. 

“ You did yourself, 
this very minute.” 

Tom had never opened his lips ; so he was very 
much taken aback indeed. 

“ Yes ; every one tells me exactly what they have 
done wrong ; and that without knowing it themselves. 



196 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


So there is no use trying to hide anything from me. 
Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put no more 
pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other 
creatures’.” 

“ I did not know there was any harm in it,” said 
Tom. 

“ Then you know now. People continually say 
that to me : but I tell them, if you don’t know that 
fire burns, that is no reason that it should not burn you ; 
and if you don’t know that dirt breeds fever, that is 
no reason why the fevers should not kill you. The 
lobster did not know that there was any harm in getting 
into the lobster-pot ; but it caught him all the same.” 

“ Dear me,” thought Tom, “ she knows everything !” 
And so she did, indeed. 

“And so, if you do not know that things are wrong, 
that is no reason why you should not be punished for 
them.; though not as much, not as much, my little 
man ” (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), “ as 
if you did know.” 

“Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,” said 
Tom. 

“Not at all ; I am the best friend you ever had in 
all your life. But I will tell you; I cannot help 
punishing people when they do wrong. I like it no 
more than they do ; I am often very, very sorry for 
them, poor things : but I cannot help it. If I tried 
not to do it, I should do it all the same. For I work 
by machinery, just like an engine; and am full of 


V 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


197 


wheels and springs inside ; and am wound up very 
carefully, so that I cannot help going.” 

“ Was it long ago since they wound you up ? ” asked 
Tom. For he thought, the cunning little fellow, “She 
will run down some day : or they may forget to wind 
her up, as old Grimes used to forget to wind up his 
watch when he came in from the public-house ; and 
then I shall be safe.” 

“ I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, that 
I forget all about it.” 

“ Dear me,” said Tom, “ you must have been made 
a long time ! ” 

“ I never was made, my child ; and I shall go for 
ever and ever ; for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as 
young as Time.” 

And there came over the lady’s face a very curious 
expression — very solemn, and very sad; and yet very, 
very sweet. And she looked up and away, as if she 
were gazing through the sea, and through the sky, at 
something far, far off ; and as she did so, there came 
such a quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her 
face that Tom thought for the moment that she did not 
look ugly at all. And no more she did ; for she was 
like a great many people who have not a pretty 
feature in their faces, and yet are lovely to behold, 
and draw little children’s hearts to them at once ; 
because though the house is plain enough, yet from the 
windows a beautiful and good spirit is looking forth. 

And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant 


198 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


for the moment. And the strange fairy smiled too, 
and said : 

“Yes. You thought me very ugly just now, did 
you not ? ” 

Tom hung down his head, and got very red about 
the ears. 

“ And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in 
the world ; and I shall be, till people behave them- 
selves as they ought to do. And then I shall grow as 
handsome as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the 
world ; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. 
So she begins where I end, and I begin where she ends; 
and those who will not listen to her must listen to me, 
as you will see. Now, all of you run away, except 
Tom ; and he may stay and see what I am going to do. 
It will be a very good warning for him to begin with, 
before he goes to school. 

“Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and 
call up all who have ill-used little children and serve 
them as they served the children.” 

And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under a 
stone ; which made the two crabs who lived there very 
angry, and frightened their friend the butter-fish into 
flapping hysterics : but he would not move for them. 

And first she called up all the doctors who give 
little children so much physic (they were most of them 
old ones ; for the young ones have learnt better, all 
but a few army surgeons, who still fancy that a baby’s 
inside is much like a Scotch grenadier’s), and she set 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


199 


them all in a row ; and very rueful they looked ; for 
they knew what was coming. 

And first she pulled all their teeth out ; and then 
she bled them all round : and then she dosed them 
with calomel, and jalap, and salts and senna, and brim- 
stone and treacle ; and horrible faces they made ; and 
then she gave them a great emetic of mustard and 
water, and no basons ; and began all over again ; and 
that was the way she spent the morning. 

And then she called up a whole troop of foolish 
ladies, who pinch up their children’s waists and toes ; 
and she laced them all up in tight stays, so that they 
were choked and sick, and their noses grew red, and 
their hands and feet swelled ; and then she crammed 
their poor feet into the most dreadfully tight hoots, and 
made them all dance, which they did most clumsily in- 
deed ; and then she asked them how they liked it ; and 
when they said not at all, she let them go : because they 
had only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying it was 
for their children’s good, as if wasps’ waists and pigs’ toes 
could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to anybody. 

Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, 
and stuck pins into them all over, and wheeled them 
about in perambulators with tight straps across their 
stomachs and their heads and arms hanging over the 
side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and would 
have had sun-strokes: but, being under the water, 
they could only have water-strokes ; which, I assure 
you, are nearly as bach as you will find if you try to 


200 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


sit under a mill-wheel. And mind — when you hear 
a rumbling at the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell 
you that it is a ground-swell : but now you know 
better. It is the old lady wheeling the maids about 
in perambulators. 

And by that time she was so tired, she had to go 
to luncheon. 

And after luncheon she set to work again, and 
called up all the cruel schoolmasters — whole regiments 
and brigades of them ; and when she saw them, she 
frowned most terribly, and set to work in earnest, as 
if the best part of the day’s work was to come. More 
than half of them were nasty, dirty, frowzy, grubby, 
smelly old monks, who, because they dare not hit a 
man of their own size, amused themselves with beating 
little children instead ; as you may see in the picture 
of old Pope Gregory (good man and true though he 
was, when he meddled with things which he did 
understand), teaching children to sing their fa -fa- 
mi-fa with a cat-o’-nine tails under his chair : but, 
because they never had any children of their own, 
they took into their heads (as some folks do still) 
that they were the only people in the world who knew 
how to manage children : and they first brought into 
England, in the old Anglo-Saxon times, the fashion of 
treating free boys, and girls too, worse than you would 
treat a dog or a horse : but Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid 
has caught them all long ago ; and given them many a 
taste of their own rods ; and much good may it do them. 


y 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


201 


And she boxed their ears, and thumped them over the 
head with rulers, and pandied their hands with canes, 
and told them that they told stories, and were this 
and that bad sort of people ; and the more they were 
very indignant, and stood upon their honour, and 
declared they told the truth, the more she declared 
they were not, and that they were only telling lies ; 
and at last she birched them all round soundly with 
her great birch-rod and set them each an imposition 
of three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew to learn 
by heart before she came back next Friday. And at 
that they all cried and howled so, that their breaths 
came all up through the sea like bubbles out of soda- 
water; and that is one reason of the bubbles in the 
§ea. There are others : but that is the one which 
principally concerns little boys. And by that time 
she was so tired that she was glad to stop ; and, 
indeed, she had done a very good day’s work. 

Tom did not quite dislike the old lady : but he 
could not help thinking her a little spiteful — and no 
wonder if she was, poor old soul; for if she has to 
wait to grow handsome till people do as they would be 
done by, she will have to wait a very long time. 

Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! she has a great 
deal of hard work before her, and had better have 
been born a washerwoman, and stood over a tub all 
day : but, you see, people cannot always choose their 
own profession. 

But Tom longed to ask her one question ; and after 


202 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


all, whenever she looked at him, she did not look cross 
at all ; and now and then there was a funny smile in 
her face, and she chuckled to herself in a way which 
gave Tom courage, and at last he said : 

“ Pray, ma’am, may I ask you a question ? ” 

“ Certainly, my little dear.” 

“ Why don’t yon bring all the bad masters here and 
serve them out too ? The butties that knock about the 
poor collier-boys ; and the nailers that file off their lads’ 
noses and hammer their fingers ; and all the master 
sweeps, like my master Grimes ? I saw him fall into 
the water long ago ; so I surely expected he would 
have been here. I’m sure he was bad enough to me.” 

Then the old lady looked so very stern that Tom 
was quite frightened, and sorry that he had been so 
bold. But she was not angry with him. She only 
answered, “ I look after them all the week round ; and 
they are in a very different place from this, because 
they knew that they were doing wrong. ” 

She spoke very quietly ; but there was something 
in her voice which made Tom tingle from head to 
foot, as if he had got into a shoal of sea-nettles. 

“ But these people, ” she went on, “ did not know 
that they were doing wrong : they were only stupid and 
impatient; and therefore I only punish them till they 
become patient, and learn to use their common sense 
like reasonable beings. But as for chimney-sweeps, 
and collier-boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set 
good people to stop all that sort of thing ; and very 


y 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


203 


much obliged to her I am ; for if she could only stop 
the cruel masters from ill-using poor children, I should 
grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner. And 
now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be done 
by, which they did not ; and then, when my sister, 
Madame Doasyouwouldbedoneby, comes on Sunday, 
perhaps she will take notice of you, and teach you 
how to behave. She understands that better than I 
do. ” And so she went. 

Tom was very glad to hear that there was no 
chance of meeting Grimes again, though he was a 
little sorry for him, considering that he used some- 
times to give him the leavings of the beer : but he 
determined to be a very good boy all Saturday ; and 
lie was ; for he never frightened one crab, nor tickled 
any live corals, nor put stones into the sea anemones’ 
mouths, to make them fancy they had got a dinner ; 
and when Sunday morning came, sure enough, Mrs. 
Doasyouwouldbedoneby came too. Whereat all the 
little children began dancing and clapping their hands, 
and Tom danced too with all his might. 

And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what 
the colour of her hair was, or of her eyes : no more 
could Tom ; for, when any one looks at her, all they 
can think of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest, 
tenderest, funniest, merriest face they ever saw, or 
want to see. But Tom saw that she was a very tall 
woman, as tall as her sister: but instead of being 
gnarly and horny, and scaly, and prickly, like her, she 


204 


THE WATER- BABIES 


CHAP. 


was the most nice, soft, fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, 
delicious creature who ever nursed a baby ; and she 
understood babies thoroughly, for she had plenty of 
her own, whole rows and regiments of them, and has 
to this day. And all her delight was, whenever she 
had a spare moment, to play with babies, in which she 
showed herself a woman of sense ; for babies are the 
best company, and the pleasantest playfellows, in the 
world ; at least, so all the wise people in the world 
think. And therefore when the children saw her, 
they naturally all caught hold of her, and pulled her 
till she sat down on a stone, and climbed into her lap, 
and clung round her neck, and caught hold of her 
hands ; and then they all put their thumbs into their 
mouths, and began cuddling and purring like so many 
kittens, as they ought to have done. While those 
who could get nowhere else sat down on the sand, and 
cuddled her feet — for no one, you know, wear shoes 
in the water, except horrid old batliing-women, who 
are afraid of the water-babies pinching their horny 
toes. And Tom stood staring at them ; for he could 
not understand what it was all about. 

“ And who are you, you little darling ? ” she said. 

“ Oh, that is the new baby ! ” they all cried, pulling 
their thumbs out of their mouths ; “ and he never had 
any mother,” and they all put their thumbs back 
again, for they did not wish to lose any time. 

“ Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the 
very best place ; so get out, all of you, this moment.” 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


205 


And she took up two great armfuls of .babies — 
nine hundred under one arm, and thirteen hundred 
under the other — and threw them away, right and 
left, into the water. But they minded it no more 
than the naughty boys in Struwelpeter minded when 
St. Nicholas dipped them in his inkstand ; and did not 
even take their thumbs out of their mouths, but came 
paddling and wriggling back to her like so many 
tadpoles, till you could see nothing of her from head 
to foot for the swarm of little babies. 

But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in 
the softest place of all, and kissed him, and patted 
him, and talked to him, tenderly and low, such things 
as he had never heard before in his life; and Tom 
looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till 
he fell fast asleep from pure love. 

And when he woke she was telling the children 
a story. And what story did she tell them ? One 
story she told them, which begins every Christmas 
Eve, and yet never ends at all for ever and ever ; and, 
as she went on, the children took their thumbs out of 
their mouths and listened quite seriously; but not 
sadly at all ; for she never told them anything sad ; 
and Tom listened too, and never grew tired of 
listening. And he listened so long that he fell fast 
asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was 
nursing him still. 

“ Don’t go away, ” said little Tom. “ This is so 
nice. I never had any one to cuddle me before. ” 


206 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP, 


“ Don’t go away,” said all the children ; “ you have 
not sung us one song.” 

"■Well, I have time for only one. So what shall 
it be ? ” 

“ The doll you lost 1 The doll you lost ! ” cried all 
the babies at once. 

So the strange fairy sang : — 



A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 

I once heed cl sweet little doll , dears, 

The 'prettiest doll in the world ; 

Her cheeks were so red and so white , dears , 
And her hair was so charmingly curled. 
But I lost my poor little doll, dears, 

As I played in the heath one day ; 

And I cried for her more than a week, dean 
But I never could find where she lay. 


I found my poor little doll, dears, 

As I played in the heath one day : 

Folks say she is terribly chariged, dears, 

For her paint is all washed away, 

And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears, 
And her hair not the least bit curled : 
Yet, for old sakes’ sake she is still, dears, 
The prettiest doll in the world. 



208 


THE WATER-BABIES 


chap, y 


What a silly song for a fairy to sing ! 

And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted 
at it ! 

Well, but you see they have not the advantage of 
Aunt Agitate’s Arguments in the sea-land down below. 

“ Now,” said the fairy to Tom, “ will you be a good 
boy for my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I 
come back ? ” 

“ And you will cuddle me again ? ” said poor little 
Tom. 

“ Of course I will, you little duck. I should like 
to take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only 
I must not ; ” and away she went. 

So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented 
no sea-beasts after that as long as he lived ; and he is 
quite alive, I assure you, still. 

Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have 
kind pussy mammas to cuddle them and tell them 
stories ; and how afraid they ought to be of growing 
naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas’ pretty 
eyes ! 




V 













*■ 






















4 




















« 








































“ Thou little child, yet glorious in the night 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being’s height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The Years to bring the inevitable yoke — 

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.” 

Wordsworth. 


CHAPTEE VI 



EEE I come to the 
very saddest part 
of all my story. 
I know some people will 
only laugh at it, and call it 
much ado about nothing. But 
I know one man who would not ; 
and he was an officer with a pair 
of gray moustaches as long as 
your arm, who said once in com- 
pany that two of the most heart- 
rending sights in the world, which moved him most 
to tears, which he would do anything to prevent or 
remedy, were a child over a broken toy and a child 
stealing sweets. 


The company did not laugh at him ; his moustaches 
were too long and too gray for that : but, after he was 


212 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


gone, they called him sentimental and so forth, all but 
one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white as 
her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to 
soldiers ; and she said very quietly, like a Quaker : 

“ Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a 
truly brave man.” 

Now you may fancy that Tom was quite good, 
when he had everything that he could want or wish : 
but you would be very much mistaken. Being quite 
comfortable is a very good thing ; but it does not 
make people good. Indeed, it sometimes makes them 
naughty, as it has made the people in America; and 
as it made the people in the Bible, who waxed fat and 
kicked, like horses overfed and underworked. And 
I am very sorry to say that this happened to little 
Tom. For he grew so fond of the sea-bullseyes and 
sea-lollipops that his foolish little head could think of 
nothing else : and he was always longing for more, 
and wondering when the strange lady would come 
again and give him some, and what she would give 
him, and how much, and whether she would give him 
more than the others. And he thought of nothing but 
lollipops by day, and dreamt of nothing else by night 
— and what happened then ? * 

That he began to watch the lady to see where 
she kept the sweet things : and began hiding, and 
sneaking, and following her about, and pretending to 
be looking the other way, or going after something 
else, till he found out that she kept them in a 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


213 


beautiful mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a deep 
crack of the rocks. 

And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was 
afraid ; and then he longed again, and was less afraid ; 
and at last, by continual thinking about it, he longed 
so violently that he was not afraid at all. And one 
night, when all the other children were asleep, and 
he could not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept 
away among the rocks, and got to the cabinet, and 
behold ! it was open. 

But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead 
of being delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished 
he had never come there. And then he would only 
touch them, and he did ; and then he would only taste 
one, and he did ; and then he would only eat one, and 
he did; and then he would only eat two, and then 
three, and so on ; and then he was terrified lest she 
should come and catch him, and began gobbling them 
down so fast that he did not taste them, or have any 
pleasure in them; and then he felt sick, and would 
have only one more ; and then only one more again ; 
and so on till he had eaten them all up. 

And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid. 

Some people may say, But why did she not keep 
her cupboard locked ? Well, I know. — It may seem 
a very strange thing, but she never does keep her cup- 
board locked ; every one may go and taste for them- 
selves, and fare accordingly. It is very odd, but so it 


214 


T±iE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


is ; and I am quite sure that she knows best. Per- 
haps she wishes people to keep their fingers out of the 
fire, by having them burned. 

She took off her spectacles, because she did not 
like to see too much ; and in her pity she arched up 
her eyebrows into her very hair, and her eyes grew so 
wide that they would have taken in all the sorrows of 
the world, and filled with great big tears, as they too 
often do. 

But all she said was : 

“Ah, you poor little dear ! you are just like all the 
rest.” 

But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard 
nor saw her. Now, you must not fancy that she was 
sentimental at all. If you do, and think that she is 
going to let off you, or me, or any human being when 
we do wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to 
punish us, then you will find yourself very much mis- 
taken, as many a man does every year and every day. 

But what did the strange fairy do when she saw all 
her lollipops eaten ? 

Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of tho 
neck, hold him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit 
him, poke him, pull him, pinch him, pound him, put 
him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a 
cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth ? 

Not a bit. You may watch her at work if you 
know where to find her. But you will never see her 
do that. For, if she had, she knew quite well Tom 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


215 


would have fought, and kicked, and bit, and said bad 
words, and turned again that moment into a naughty- 
little heathen chimney-sweep, with his hand, like 
Ishrnael’s of old, against every man, and every man’s 
hand against him. 

Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, 
threaten him, to make him confess ? Not a bit. You 
may see her, as I said, at her work often enough if you 
know where to look for her : but you will never see 
her do that. For, if she had, she would have tempted 
him to tell lies in his fright; and that would have 
been worse for him, if possible, than even becoming a 
heathen chimney-sweep again. 

No. She leaves that for anxious parents and 
teachers (lazy ones, some call them), who, instead of 
giving children a fair trial, such as they would expect 
and demand for themselves, force them by fright to 
confess their own faults — which is so cruel and unfair 
that no judge on the bench dare do it to the wickedest 
thief or murderer, for the good British law forbids it — 
ay, and even punish them to make them confess, which 
is so detestable ei crime that it is never committed now, 
save by Inquisitors, and Kings of Naples, and a few 
other wretched people of whom the world is weary. 
And then they say, “We have trained up the child in 
the way he should go, and when he grew up he has 
departed from it. Why then did Solomon say that he 
would not depart from it ? ” But perhaps the way of 
beating, and hurrying, and frightening, and questioning, 


216 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


was not the way that the child should go ; for it is 
not even the way in which a colt should go if you 
want to break it in and make it a quiet serviceable 
horse. 

Some folks may say, “ Ah ! but the Fairy does not 
need to do that if she knows everything already.” 
True. But, if she did not know, she would not surely 
behave worse than a British judge and jury ; and no 
more should parents and teachers either. 

So she just said nothing at all about the matter, 
not even when Tom came next day with the rest for 
sweet things. He was horribly afraid of coming : but 
he was still more afraid of staying away, lest any one 
should suspect him. He was dreadfully afraid, too, 
lest there should be no sweets — as was to be expected, 
he having eaten them all — and lest then the fairy 
should inquire who had taken them. But, behold ! 
she pulled out just as many as ever, which astonished 
Tom, and frightened him still more. 

And, when the fairy looked him full in the face, he 
shook from head to foot : however she gave him his 
share like the rest, and he thought within himself that 
she could not have found him out. 

But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he 
hated the taste of them ; and they made him so sick 
that he had to get away as fast as he could; and 
terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all 
the week after. 

Then, when next week came, he had his share again ; 


VI A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 217 

and again the fairy looked him full in the face ; but 
more sadly than she had ever looked. And he could 
not bear the sweets : but took them again in spite of 
himself. 

And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he 
wanted to be cuddled like 
the rest; hut she said 
very seriously : 

“ I should like to cuddle 
you; hut I cannot, you 
are so horny and prickly.” 

And Tom looked at 
himself : and he was all 
over prickles, just like a 
sea-egg. 

Which was quite nat- 
ural ; for you must know 
and believe that people's 
souls make their bodies 
just as a snail makes its 
shell (I am not joking, 
my little man ; I am in 
serious, solemn earnest). 

And therefore, when 
Tom’s soul grew all prickly with naughty tempers, his 
body could not help growing prickly too, so that nobody 
would cuddle him, or play with him, or even like to 
look at him. 

What could Tom do now but go away and hide in 



218 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


a corner and cry ? For nobody would play with him, 
and he knew full well why. 

And he was so miserable all that week that when 
the ugly fairy came and looked at him once more full 
in the face, more seriously and sadly than ever, he 
could stand it no longer, and thrust the sweetmeats 
away, saying, “ No, I don’t want any : I can’t bear 
them now,” and then burst out crying, poor little 
man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word as 
it happened. 

He was horribly frightened when he had done so ; 
for he expected her to punish him very severely. But, 
instead, she only took him up and kissed him, which 
was not quite pleasant, for her chin was very bristly 
indeed ; but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that 
rough kissing was better than none. 

“ I will forgive you, little man,” she said. “ I 
always forgive every one the moment they tell me the 
truth of their own accord.” 

“ Then you will take away all these nasty prickles ?” 

“ That is a very different matter. You put them 
there yourself, and only you can take them away.” 

“ But how can I do that ? ” asked Tom, crying 
afresh. 

“Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; 
so I shall fetch you a schoolmistress, who will teach 
you how to get rid of your prickles.” And so she went 
away. 

Tom was frightened at the notion of a school- 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


219 


mistress , for he thought she would certainly come with 
a birch-rod or a cane; but he comforted himself, at 
last, that she might be something like the old woman 
in Yendale — which she was not in the least; for, 
when the fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful 
little girl that ever was seen, with long curls floating 



all round her like a silver one. 

“ There he is,” said the fairy ; “ and you must teach 
him to be good, whether you like or not.” 

“ I know,” said the little girl ; but she did not seem 
Quite to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and 


220 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


looked at Tom under her brows ; and Tom put* his 
finger in his mouth, and looked at her under his brows, 
for he was horribly ashamed of himself. 

The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin ; 
and perhaps she would never have begun at all if poor 
Tom had not burst out crying, and begged her to teach 
him to be good and help him to cure his prickles ; and at 
that she grew so tender-hearted that she began teaching 
him as prettily as ever child was taught in the world. 

And what did the little girl teach Tom ? She 
taught him, first, what you have been taught ever since 
you said your first ^prayers at your mother’s knees ; but 
she taught him much more simply. For the lessons in 
that world, my child, have no such hard words in them 
as the lessons in this, and therefore the water-babies 
like them better than you like your lessons, and long 
to learn them more and more ; and grown men cannot 
puzzle nor quarrel over their meaning, as they do here 
on land ; for those lessons all rise clear and pure, like 
the Test out of Overton Pool, out of the everlasting 
ground of all life and truth. 

So she taught Tom every day in the week ; only 
on Sundays she always went away home, and the kind 
fairy took her place. And before she had taught Tom 
many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, 
and his skin was smooth and clean again. 

“ Dear me ! ” said the little girl ; “ why, I know 
you now. You are the very same little chimney* 
sweep who came into my bedroom.” 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


221 


“ Dear me ! ” cried Tom. “ And I know you, too, 
now. You are the very little white lady whom I saw 
in bed.” And he jumped at her, and longed to hug 
and kiss her; but did not, remembering that she was 
a lady born ; so he only jumped round and round her 
till he was quite tired. 

And then they began telling each other all their 
story — how he had got into the water, and she had 
fallen over the rock; and how he had swum down to 
the sea, and how she had flown out of the window ; 
and how this, that, and the other, till it was all talked 
out : and then they both began over again, and I can’t 
say which of the two talked fastest. 

And then they set to work at their lessons again, 
and both liked them so well that they went on well 
till seven full years were past and gone. 

You may fancy that Tom was quite content and 
happy all those seven years ; but the truth is, he was 
not. He had always one thing on his mind, and that 
was — where little Elbe went, when she went home on 
Sundays. 

To a very beautiful place, she said. 

But what was the beautiful place like, and where 
was it ? 

Ah ! that is just what she could not say. And it 
is strange, but true, that no one can say ; and that 
those who have been oftenest in it, or even nearest to 
it, can say least about it, and make people understand 
least what it is like. There are a good many folks 


222 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


about the Other -end -of- Nowhere (where Tom went 
afterwards), who pretend to know it from north to 
south as well as if they had been penny postmen 
there ; but, as they are safe at the Other-end-of- 
No where, nine hundred and ninety-nine million miles 
away, what they say cannot concern, us. 

But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self- 
sacrificing people, who really go there, can never tell 
you anything about it, save that it is the most 
beautiful place in all the world ; and, if you ask them 
more, they grow modest, and hold their peace, for fear 
of being laughed at ; and quite right they are. 

So all that good little Ellie could say was, that 
it was worth all the rest of the world put together. 
And of course that only made Tom the more anxious 
to go likewise. 

“ Miss Ellie,” he said at last, “ I will know why I 
cannot go with you when you go home on Sundays, or 
I shall have no peace, and give you none either.” 

“ You must ask the fairies that.” 

So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came 
next, Tom asked her. 

“Little boys who are only fit to play with sea- 
beasts cannot go there, ” she said. “ Those who go 
there must go first where they do not like, and do 
what they do not like, and help somebody they do not 
like.” 

“ Why, did Ellie do that ? ” 

“Ask her.” 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


223 


And Ellie blushed, and said, “ Ye s, Tom , I did not 
like coming here at first ; I was so much happier at 
home, where it is always Sunday. And I was afraid 
of you, Tom, at first, because — because ” 

“ Because I was all over prickles ? But I am not 
prickly now, am I, Miss Ellie ? ” 

“ No,” said Ellie. “ I like you very much now ; 
and I like coming here, too.” 

“ And perhaps,” said the fairy, “ you will learn to 
like going where you don’t like, and helping some one 
that you don’t like, as Ellie has.” 

But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung 
his head down ; for he did not see that at all. 

So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom 
asked her; for he 'thought in his little head, She is 
not so strict as her sister, and perhaps she may let me 
off more easily. 

Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow ! and yet I don’t know 
why I should blame you, while so many grown people 
have got the very same notion in their heads. 

But, when they try it, they get just the same 
answer as Tom did. For, when he asked the second 
fairy, she told him just what the first did, and in the 
very same words. 

Tom was very unhappy at that. And, when Ellie 
went home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, 
and did not care to listen to the fairy’s stories about 
good children, though they were prettier than ever. 
Indeed, the more he overheard of them, the less he 


224 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


liked to listen, because they were all about children 
who did what they did not like, and took trouble for 
other people, and worked to feed their little brothers 
and sisters instead of caring only for their play. And, 
when she began to tell a story about a holy child in 
old times, who was martyred by the heathen because 
it would not worship idols, Tom could bear no more, 
and ran away and hid among the rocks. 

And, when Ellie came back, he was shy with her, 
because he fancied she looked down on him, and 
thought him a coward. And then he grew quite 
cross with her, because she was superior to him, and 
did what he could not do. And poor Elbe was quite 
surprised and sad ; and at last Tom burst out crying : 
but he would not tell her what was really in his mind. 

And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity 
to know where Ellie went to ; so that he began not to 
care for his playmates, or for the sea-palace or any- 
thing else. But perhaps that made matters all the 
easier for him ; for he grew so discontented with 
everything round him that he did not care to stay, 
and did not care where he went. 

“Well,” he said, at last, “I am so miserable here, 
I’ll go ; if only you will go with me ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Ellie, “ I wish I might ; but the worst 
of it is, that the fairy says that you must go alone if 
you go at all. Now don’t poke that poor crab about, 
Tom ” (for he was feeling very naughty and mis- 
chievous), “ or the fairy will have to punish you.” 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


225 


Tom was very nearly saying, “ I don’t care if she 
does ; ” but he stopped himself in time. 

“I know what she wants me to do,” he said, 
whining most dolefully. “ She wants me to go after 
that horrid old Grimes. I don’t like him, that’s certain. 
And if I find him, he will turn me into a chimney- 
sweep again, I know. That’s what I have been afraid 
of all along.” 

“ No, he won’t — I know as much as that. Nobody 
can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, 
as long as they are good.” 

“ Ah,” said naughty Tom, “ I see what you want ; 
you are persuading me all along to go, because you 
are tired of me, and want to get rid of me.” 

Little Elbe opened her eyes very wide at that, and 
they were all brimming over with tears. 

“ Oh, Tom, Tom ! ” she said, very mournfully — and 
then she cried, “ Oh, Tom ! where are you ? ” 

And Tom cried, “ Oh, Elbe, where are you ? ” 

Eor neither of them could see each other — not 
the least. Little Elbe vanished quite away, and Tom 
heard her voice calling him, and growing smaller and 
smaller, and fainter and fainter, till all was silent. 

Who was frightened then >but Tom ? He swam 
up and down among the rocks, into all the halls and 
chambers, faster than ever he swam before, but could 
not find her. He shouted after her, but she did not 
answer ; he asked all the other children, but they had 
not seen her ; and at last he went up to the top of the 

Q 


226 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


water and began crying and screaming for Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid — which perhaps was the best thing 
to do — for she came in a moment. 

“ Oh ! ” said Tom. “ Oh dear, oh dear ! I have 

been naughty to Ellie, 
and I have killed her 
— I know I have 
killed her.” 

“Not quite that,” 
said the fairy ; “ but 
I have sent her away 
home, and she will 
not come back again 
for I do not know 
how long.” 

And at that Tom 
cried so bitterly that 
the salt sea wag 
swelled with his tears, 
and the tide was 
•3,954,620,819 of an 
inch higher than it 
had been the day be- 
fore : but perhaps that was owing to the waxing of 
the moon. It may have been so ; but it is considered 
right in the new philosophy, you know, to give spiritual 
causes for physical phenomena — especially in parlour- 
tables ; and, of course, physical causes for spiritual 
ones, like thinking, and praying, and knowing right 



VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


227 


from wrong. And so they odds it till it comes even, 
as folks say down in Berkshire. 

“ How cruel of you to send Ellie away ! ” sobbed 
Tom. “ However, I will find her again, if I go to the 
world’s end to look for her.” 

The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold 
his tongue : hut she took him on her lap very kindly, 
just as her sister would have done ; and put him in 
mind how it was not her fault, because she was wound 
up inside, like watches, and could not help doing 
things whether she liked or not. And then she told 
him how he had been in the nursery long enough, and 
must go out now and see the world, if he intended 
ever to he a man ; and how he must go all alone by 
himself, as every one else that ever was born has to 
go, and see with his own eyes, and smell with his own 
nose, and make his own bed and lie on it, and burn 
his own fingers if he put them into the fire. And 
then she told him how many fine things there were 
to be seen in the world, and what an odd, curious, 
pleasant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on 
the whole, successful (as, indeed, might have been 
expected) sort of a place it was, if people would only 
be tolerably brave and honest and good in it ; and 
then she told him not to be afraid of anything he met, 
for nothing would harm him if he remembered all 
his lessons, and did what he knew was right. And at 
last she comforted poor little Tom so much that he 
was quite eager to go, and wanted to set out that 


228 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


minute. “ Only,” lie said, “ if I might see Ellie once 
before I went ! ” 

“ Why do you want that ? ” 

“ Because — because I should he so much happier if 
I thought she had forgiven me.” 

And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, 
smiling, and looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss 
her ; but was still afraid it would not he respectful, 
because she was a lady born. 

“ I am going, Ellie ! ” said Tom. “ I am going, if 
it is to the world’s end. But I don’t like going at all, 
and that’s the truth.” 

“ Pooh ! pooh ! pooh ! ” said the fairy. “ You will 
like it very well indeed, you little rogue, and you 
know that at the bottom of your heart. But if you 
don’t, I will make you like it. Come here, and see 
what happens to people who do only what is pleasant.” 

And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had 
all sorts of mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the 
rocks) the most wonderful waterproof book, full of 
such photographs as never were seen. For she had 
found out photography (and this is a fact) more than 
13,598,000 years before anybody was born; and, 
what is more, her photographs did not merely 
represent light and shade, as ours do, but colour also, 
and all colours, as you may see if you look at a black- 
cock’s tail, or a butterfly’s wing, or indeed most things 
that are or can be, so to speak. And therefore her 
photographs were very curious and famous, and the 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


229 


children looked with great delight for the opening of 
the book. 

And on the title-page was written, “The History 
of the great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, 
who came away from the country of Hardwork, 
because they wanted to play on the Jews’ harp all 
day long.” 

In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes 
living in the land of Readymade, at the foot of the 
Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle grows 
wild ; and if you want to know what that is, you 
must read Peter Simple. 

They lived very much such a life as those jolly old 
Greeks in Sicily, whom you may see painted on the 
ancient vases, and really there seemed to be great 
excuses for them, for they had no need to work. 

Instead of houses they lived in the beautiful caves 
of tufa, and bathed in the warm springs three times 
a day ; and, as fdr clothes, it was so warm there that 
the gentlemen walked about in little beside a cocked 
hat and a pair of straps, or some light summer tackle 
of that kind ; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in 
autumn (when they were not too lazy) to make their 
winter dresses. 

They were very fond of music, but it was too 
much trouble to learn the piano or the violin ; and as 
for dancing, that would have been too great an 
exertion. So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and 
played on the Jews’ harp ; and, if the ants bit them, 


9 




4 











CHAP. VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


231 


why they just got up and went to the next ant-hill, 
till they were bitten there likewise. 

And they sat under the flapdoodle-trees, and let 
the flapdoodle drop into their mouths ; and under the 
vines, and squeezed the grape-juice down their throats ; 
and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted, crying, 
“ Come and eat me,” as was their fashion in that 
country, they waited till the pigs ran against their 
mouths, and then took a bite, and were content, just 
as so many oysters would have been. 

They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever 
came near their land ; and no tools, for everything 
was readymade to their hand ; and the stern old fairy 
Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and 
make them use their wits, or die. 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till there were 
never such comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky 
people in the world. 

“ Well, that is a jolly life,” said Tom. 

“You think so ?” said the fairy. “ Do you see 
that great peaked mountain there behind,” said the 
fairy, “ with smoke coming out of its top ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“And do you see all those ashes, and slag,, and 
cinders lying about ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then turn over the next five hundred years, and 
you will see what happens next.” 

And behold the mountain had blown up like a 


232 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


barrel of gunpowder, and then boiled over like a 
kettle ; whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes were 
blown into the air, and another third were smothered 
in ashes ; so that there was only one-third left. 

“ You see,” said the fairy, “ what comes of living 
on a burning mountain.” 

“ Oh, why did you not warn them ? ” said little 
Ellie. 

“ I did warn them all that I could. I let the 
smoke come out of the mountain ; and wherever there 
is smoke there is fire. And I laid the ashes and 
cinders all about; and wherever there are cinders, 
cinders may be again. But they did not like to face 
facts, my dears, as very few people do ; and so they 
invented a cock-and-bull story, which, I am sure, I 
never told them, that the smoke was the breath of a 
giant, whom some gods or other had buried under the 
mountain ; and that the cinders were what the dwarfs 
roasted the little pigs whole with ; and other nonsense 
of that kind. And, when folks are in . that humour, I 
cannot teach them, save by the good old birch-rod.” 

And then she turned over the next five hundred 
years : and there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, 
doing as they liked, as before. They were too lazy to 
move away from the mountain ; so they said, If it has 
blown up once, that is all the more reason that it 
should not blow up again. And they were few in 
number : but they only said, The more the merrier, 
but the fewer the better fare. However, that was not 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


233 


quite true ; for all the flapdoodle-trees were killed by 
the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast pigs, 
who, of course, could not he expected to have little 
ones. So they had to live very hard, on nuts and 
roots which they scratched out of the ground with 
sticks. Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their 
ancestors used to do, before they came into the land 
of Beady made ; hut they had forgotten how to make 
ploughs (they had forgotten even how to make Jews’ 
harps by this time), and had eaten all the seed-corn 
which they brought out of the land of Hardwork years 
since ; and of course it was too much trouble to go 
away and find more. So they lived miserably on 
roots and nuts, and all the weakly little children bad 
great stomachs, and then died. 

“ Why,” said Tom, “ they are growing no better 
than savages.” 

“ And look how ugly they are all getting,” said 
Ellie. 

“ Yes ; when people live on poor vegetables instead 
of roast beef and plum-pudding, their jaws grow large, 
and their lips grow coarse, like the poor Paddies who 
eat potatoes.” 

And she turned over the next five hundred years. 
And there they were all living up in trees, and 
making nests to keep off the rairn And underneath 
the trees lions were prowling about. 

“ Why,” said Ellie, “ the lions seem to have eaten a 
good many of them, for there are very few left now.” 


234 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ Yes,” said the fairy ; “ you see it was only the 
strongest and most active ones who could climb the 
trees, and so escape.” 

“But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps 
they are,” said Tom ; “ they are a rough lot as ever I saw.” 

“ Yes, they are getting very strong now ; for the 
ladies will not marry any but the very strongest and 
fiercest gentlemen, who can help them up the trees 
out of the lions’ way.” 

And she turned over the next five hundred years. 
And in that they were fewer still, and stronger, and 
fiercer ; but tlieir feet had changed shape very oddly, 
for they laid hold of the branches with their great toes, 
as if they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor 
uses his toes to thread his needle. 

The children were very much surprised, and asked 
the fairy whether that was her doing. 

“Yes, and no,” she said, smiling. “It was only 
those who could use their feet as well as their hands 
who could get a good living : or, indeed, get married ; 
so that they got the best of everything, and starved 
out all the rest ; and those who are left keep up a 
regular breed of toe-tliumb-men, as a breed of short- 
horns, or skye-terriers, or fancy pigeons is kept up.” 

“But there is a hairy one among them,” said Ellie. 

“ Ah ! ” said the fairy, “ that will be a great man 
in his time, and chief of all the tribe.” 

And, when she turned over the next five hundred 
years, it was true. 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


235 


lor this hairy chief had had hairy children, and 
they hairier children still ; and every one wished to 
marry hairy husbands, and have hairy children too ; for 
the climate was growing so damp that none but the 
hairy ones could live : all the rest coughed and sneezed, 
and had sore throats, and went into consumptions, 
before they could grow up to be men and womeu. 

Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred 
years. And they were fewer* still. 

“ Why, there is one on the ground picking up 
roots,” said Elbe, “ and he cannot walk upright.” 

No more he could ; for in the same way that the 
shape of their feet had altered, the shape of their 
backs had altered also. 

“ Why,” cried Tom, “ I declare they are all apes.” 

“ Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures,” 
said the fairy. “ They are grown so stupid now, that 
they can hardly think : for none of them have used 
their wits for many hundred years. They have almost 
forgotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid child for- 
got some of the words it heard from its stupid parents, 
and had not wits enough to make fresh words for 
itself. Beside, they are grown so fierce and suspicious 
and brutal that they keep out of each other’s way, 
and mope and sulk in the dark forests, never hearing 
each other’s voice, till they have forgotten almost what 
speech is like. I am afraid they will all be apes very 
soon, and all by doing only what they liked.” 

And in the next five hundred years they were all 


236 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


dead and gone, by bad food and wild beasts and 
hunters; all except one tremendous old fellow with 
jaws like a jack, who stood full seven feet high ; and 



M. Du Chaillu came up to him, and shot him, as he 
stood roaring and' thumping his breast. And he 
remembered that his ancestors had once been men 
and tried to say, “Am I not a man and a brother?” 



VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


237 


but had forgotten how to use his tongue ; and then he 
had tried to call for a doctor, but he had forgotten the 
word for one. So all he said was “ Ubboboo ! ” and 
died. 

And that was the end of the great and jolly nation 
of the Doasyoulikes. And, when Tom and Ellie came 
to the end of the book, they looked very sad and 
solemn ; and they had good reason so to do, for they 
really fancied that the men were apes, and never 
thought, in their simplicity, of asking whether the 
creatures had hippopotamus majors in their brains or 
not ; in which case, as you have been told already, they 
could not possibly have been apes, though they were 
more apish than the apes of all aperies. 

“ But could you not have saved them from becoming 
apes ? ” said little Ellie, at last. 

“ At first, my dear ; if only they would have behaved 
like men, and set to work to do what they did not like. 
But the longer they waited, and behaved like the 
dumb beasts, who only do what they like, the stupider 
and clumsier they grew ; till at last they were past all 
cure, for they had thrown their own wits away. It is 
such things as this that help to make me so ugly, that 
I know not when I shall grow fair.” 

“ And where are they all now ? ” asked Ellie. 

“ Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.” 

“Yes!” said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as 
she closed the wonderful book. “ Folks say now that 
I can make beasts into men, by circumstance, and selec- 


238 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


tion, and competition, and so forth. Well, perhaps 
they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong. 
That is one of the seven things which I am forbidden 
to tell, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues ; and, at all 
events, it is no concern of theirs. Whatever their 
ancestors were, men they are ; and I advise them to 



behave as such, and act accordingly. But let them 
recollect this, that there are two sides to every question, 
and a downhill as well as an uphill road ; and, if I 
can turn beasts into men, I can, by the same laws of 
circumstance, and selection, and competition, turn men 
into beasts. You were very near being turned into a 
beast once or twice, little Tom. Indeed, if you had 
not made up your mind to go on this journey, and see 


VI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


239 


the world, like an Englishman, I am not sure but that 
you would have ended as an eft in a pond.” 

“ Oh, dear me ! ” said Tom ; “ sooner than that, and 
be all over slime, I’ll go this minute, if it is to the 
world’s end.” 


“ And Nature, the old Nurse, took 
The child upon her knee, 

Saying, ‘ Here is a story book 
Thy father hath written for thee. 

“ ‘Come wander with me,’ she said, 

‘ Into regions yet untrod, 

And read what is still unread 
In the Manuscripts of God. ’ 

“ And he wandered away and away 
With Nature, the dear old Nurse, 
Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe.” 


Longfellow. 


CHAPTER YII 



0 W,” said 
Tom, “ I 
am ready 
to be off, if it’s 
to the world’s 
end.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the 
fairy, “that is a 
brave, good boy. 
But you must go 
farther than the 
world’s end, if you 
want to find Mr. 
Grimes ; for he is 
at the Other-end- 
of-Nowhere. You 
must go to Shiny Wall, and through the white gate 
that never was opened ; and then you will come to 
Peacepool, and Mother Carey’s Haven, where the good 
whales go when they die. And there Mother Carey 
will tell you the way to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and 
there you will find Mr. Grimes.” 


K 


242 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


<c Oh, dear ! ” said Tom. “ But I do not know my 
way to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.” 

“ Little boys must take the trouble to find out 
things for themselves, or they will never grow to be 
men ; so that you must ask all the beasts in the sea and 
the birds in the air, and if you have been good to them, 
some of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.” 

“ Well.” said Tom, “ it will be a long journey, so I 
had better start at once. Good-bye, Miss Elbe; you 
know I am getting a big boy, and I must go out and 
see the world.” 

“ I know you must,” said Ellie ; “ but you will not 
forget me, Tom. I shall wait here till you come.” 

And she shook hands with him, and bade him good • 
bye. Tom longed very much again to kiss her ; but 
he thought it would not be respectful, considering she 
was a lady born ; so he promised not to forget her : 
but his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the 
notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her 
in five minutes : however, though his head forgot her, 
I am glad to say his heart did not. 

So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the 
birds in the air, but none of them knew the way to 
Shiny Wall. For why ? He was still too far down 
- south. 

Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever 
seen — a gallant ocean -steamer, with a long cloud of 
smoke trailing behind ; and he wondered how she 
went on without sails, and swam up to her to see. A 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


243 


school of dolphins were running races round and 
round her, going three feet for her one, and Tom asked 
them the way to Shiny Wall : but they did not know. 
Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last 
he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that 
he played under her quarter all day, till he nearly had 
his nose knocked off by the fans, and thought it time 
to move. Then he watched the sailors upon deck, 
and the ladies, with their bonnets and parasols : but 
none of them could see him, because their eyes were 
not opened, — as, indeed, most people’s eyes are not. 

At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a 
very pretty lady, in deep black widow’s weeds, and in 
her arms a baby. She leaned over the quarter-gallery, 
and looked back and back toward England far away ; 
and as she looked she sang : 

1 . 

“ Soft soft wind , from out the sweet south sliding , 
Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea ; 

Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining 
Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me . 

II. 

“ Deep deep Love , within thine own abyss abiding , 
Pour Thyself abroad, 0 Lord, on earth and air and sea ; 

Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding, 
Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame . my helpless babe 
and me” 


244 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of 
the air so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it 
all day. But as she held the baby over the gallery 
rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the water 



gurgling in the ship’s wake, lo ! and behold, the baby 
saw Tom. 

He was quite sure of that ; for when their eyes 
met, the baby smiled and held out his hands ; and 


YJI 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


245 


Tom smi]ed and held out his hands too ; and the baby 
kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard 
to him. 

“ What do you see, my darling ? ” said the lady ; 
and her eyes followed the baby’s till she too caught 
sight of Tom, swimming about among the foam-heads 
below. 

She gave a little shriek and start ; and then she 
said, quite quietly, “ Babies in the sea ? Well, perhaps 
it is the happiest place for them ; ” and waved her 
hand to Tom, and cried, “ Wait a little, darling, only 
a little : and perhaps we shall go with you and he at 
rest.” 

And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out 
and talked to her. and drew her in. And Tom turned 
away northward, sad and wondering ; and watched the 
great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the lights 
on board peep out one by one, and die out again, and 
the long bar of smoke fade away into the evening 
mist, till all was out of sight. 

And he swam northward again, day after day, till 
at last he met the King of the Herrings, with a curry- 
comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth 
for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall ; so 
he bolted his sprat head foremost, and said : 

“ If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to 
the Allalonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl. 
She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly as ancient 
as my own; and knows a good deal which these 


246 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


modern upstarts don’t, as ladies of old houses are likely 
to do.” 

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the 
Herrings told him very kindly, for he was a courteous 
old gentleman of the old school, though he was horribly 



ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old dandies 
who lounge in the club-house windows. 

But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he 
called after him : “ Hi ! I say, can you fly ? ” 

“ I never tried,” says Tom. “ Why ? ” 


VII A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND- BABY 247 

“ Because, if you can, I should advise you to say 
nothing to the old lady about it. There ; take a hint. 
Good-bye.” 



And away Tom went for seven days and seven 
nights due north-west, till he came to a great codbank, 


248 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the like of which he never saw before. The great cod 
lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled shell-fish 
all day long; and the blue sharks roved above in 
hundreds, and gobbled them when they came up. So 
they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had done 
since the making of the world ; for no man had come 
here yet to catch them, and find out how rich old 
Mother Carey is. 

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing 
up on the Allalonestone, all alone. And a very grand 
old lady she was, full three feet high, and bolt upright, 
like some old Highland chieftainess. She had on a 
black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and 
a very high bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark 
of high breeding), and a large pair of white spectacles 
on it, which made her look rather odd : but it was the 
ancient fashion of her house. 

And instead of wings, she had two little feathery 
arms, with which she fanned herself, and complained 
of the dreadful heat ; and she kept on crooning an old 
song to herself, which she learnt when she was a little 
baby-bird, long ago — 

“ Two little birds they sat on a stone, 

One swam away, and then there vms one , 

With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

“ The other swam after, and then there was none , 
And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady.” 


vii A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 249 

It was “ flew ” away, properly, and not “ swam ” 
away : but, as she could not fly, she had a right to 
alter it. However, it was a very fit song for her to 
sing, because she was a lady herself. 

Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his 
bow ; and the first thing she said was — 

“ Have you wings 1 Can you fly ? ” 

“ Oh dear, no, ma’am ; I should not think of such 
thing,” said cunning little Tom. 

“Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to 
you, my dear. It is quite refreshing nowadays to see 
anything without wings. They must all have wings, 
forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird, and fly. 
What can they want with flying, and raising them- 
selves above their proper station in life ? In the days 
of my ancestors no birds ever thought of having wings, 
and did very well without ; and now they all laugh at 
me because I keep to the good old fashion. Why, the 
very marrocks and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar 
creatures, and poor little ones enough they are ; and 
my own cousins too, the razor-bills, who are gentlefolk 
born, and ought to know better than to ape their 
inferiors.” 

And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get 
in a word edgeways ; and at last he did, when the old 
lady got out of breath, and began fanning herself again ; 
and then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall ? Who should know better than I ? 
We all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, 


250 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


when it was decently cold, and the climate was fit for 
gentlefolk ; but now, what with the heat, and what 
with these vulgar-winged things who fly up and down 
and eat everything, so that gentlepeople’s hunting is 
all spoilt, and one really cannot get one’s living, or 
hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown 
against by some creature that would not have dared 
to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago — 
what was I saying ? Why, we have quite gone down 
in the world, my dear, and have nothing left but our 
honour. And I am the last of my family. A friend 
of mine and I came and settled on this rock when we 
were young, to be out of the way of low people. Once 
we were a great nation, and spread over all the Northern 
Isles. But men shot us so, and knocked us on the 
head, and took our eggs — why, if you will believe it, 
they say that on the coast of Labrador the sailors used 
to lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called 
their ship, and drive us along the plank by hundreds, 
till we tumbled down into the ship’s waist in heaps ; 
and then, I suppose, they ate us, the nasty fellows I 
Well — but — what was I saying ? At last, there were 
none of us left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, just 
off the Iceland coast, up which no man could climb. 
Even there we had no peace ; for one day, when I was 
quite a young girl, the land rocked, and the sea boiled, 
and the sky grew dark, and all the air was filled with 
smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old Gairfowls- 
kerry into the sea. The dovekies and marrocks, of 


VII A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 251 

course, all flew away ; but we were too proud to do 
that. Some of us were dashed to pieces, and some 
drowned ; and those who were left got away to Eldey, 
and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and 
that another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea 
close to the old one, but that it is such a poor flat place 
that it is not safe to live on : and so here I am left 
alone.” 

This was the Gairfowl’s story, and, strange as it 
may seem, it is every word of it true. 

“ If you only had had wings ! ” said Tom ; “ then 
you might all have flown away too.” 

“ Yes, young gentleman : and if people are not 
gentleman and ladies, and forget that noblesse oblige , 
they will find it as easy to get on in the world as 
other people who don’t care what they do. Why, if I 
had not recollected that noblesse oblige , I should not have 
been all alone now.” And the poor old lady sighed. 

“ How was that, ma’am ? ” 

“ Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, 
and after we had been here some time, he wanted to 
marry — in fact, he actually proposed to me. Well, I 
can’t blame him ; I was young, and very handsome 
then, I don’t deny : but you see, I could not hear of 
such a thing, because he was my deceased sister’s 
husband, you see ? ” 

“ Of course not, ma’am,” said Tom ; though, of 
course, he knew nothing about it. “She was very 
much diseased, I suppose ? ” 


252 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ You do not understand me, my dear. I mean, 
that being a lady, and with right and honourable 
feelings, as our house always has had, I felt it my duty 
to snub him, and howk him, and peck him continually, 
to keep him at his proper distance ; and, to tell the 
truth, I once pecked him a little too hard, poor fellow, 
and he tumbled backwards off the rock, arid — really, 
it was very unfortunate, but it was not my fault — a 
shark coming by saw him flapping, and snapped him 
up. And since then I have lived all alone — 

‘ With a fal-lal-la-lady.’ 

And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody 
will miss me ; and then the poor stone will be left all 
alone.” 

“ But, please, which is the way to Shiny Wall ? ” 
said Tom. 

“ Oh, you must go, my little dear — you must go. 
Let me see — I am sure — that is — really, my poor old 
brains are getting quite puzzled. Do you know, my 
little dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you must 
ask some of these vulgar birds about, for I have quite 
forgotten.” 

And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of 
pure oil ; and Tom was quite sorry for her ; and for 
himself too, for he was at his wit’s end whom to ask. 

But by there came a flock of petrels, who are 
Mother Carey’s own chickens; and Tom thought them 
much prettier than Lady Gairfowl, and so perhaps they 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


253 


were ; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh 
experience between the time that she invented the 
Gairfowl and the time that she invented them. They 
flitted along like a flock of black swallows, and hopped 
and skipped from wave to wave, lifting up their little 
feet behind them so daintily, and whistling to each 
other so tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at 
once, and called them to know the way to Shiny Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall ? Do you want Shiny Wall ? Then 
come with us, and we will show you. We are Mother 
Carey’s own chickens, and she sends us out over all 
the seas, to show the good birds the way home.” 

Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after he 
had made his bow to the Gairfowl. But she would 
not return his bow : but held herself holt upright, and 
wept tears of oil as she sang : 

“And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady .” 

But she was wrong there ; for the stone was not 
left all alone : and the next time that Tom goes by it, 
he will see a sight worth seeing. 

The old Gairfowl is gone already: hut there are 
better things come in her place ; and when Tom comes 
he will see the fishing -smacks anchored there in 
hundreds, from Scotland, and from Ireland, and from the 
Orkneys, and the Shetlands, and from all the Northern 
ports, full of the children of the old Norse Yikings, the 
masters of the sea. And the men will he hauling in 


254 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the great cod by thousands, till tlieir hands are sore 
from the lines ; and they will be making cod -liver oil 
and guano, and salting down the fish ; and there will be 
a man-of-war steamer there to protect them, and a 
lighthouse to show them the way ; and you and I, 
perhaps, shall go some day to the Allalonestone to the 
great summer sea -fair, and dredge strange creatures 
such as man never saw before ; and we shall hear the 
sailors boast that it is not the worst jewel in Queen 
Victoria’s crown, for there are eighty miles of codbank, 
and food for all the poor folk in the land. That is 
what Tom will see, and perhaps you and I shall see it 
too. And then we shall not be sorry because we can- 
not get a Gairfowl to stuff, much less find gairfowl 
enough to drive them into stone pens and slaughter 
them, as the old Norsemen did, or drive them on board 
along a plank till the ship was victualled with them, 
as the old English and French rovers used to do, of 
whom dear old Hakluyt tells : but we shall remember 
what Mr. Tennyson says : how 

“ The old order changeth, giving place to the new, 

And God fulfils himself in many ways 

And now Tom was all ago g to start for Shiny 
Wall ; but the petrels said no. They must go first to 
Allfowlsness, and wait there for the great gathering of 
all the sea-birds, before they start for their summer 
breeding-places faraway in the Northern Isles; and 
there they would be sure to find some birds which 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND- BABY 


255 


were going to Shiny Wall: but where Allfowlsness 
was, he must promise never to tell, lest men should go 
there and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put 
them into stupid museums, instead of leaving them 
to play and breed and work in Mother Carey’s water- 
garden, where they ought to be. 

So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know ; and 
all that is to be said about it is, that Tom waited 
there many days; and as he waited, he saw a very 
curious sight. On the rabbit burrows on the shore 
there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, 
such as you see in Cambridgeshire. And they made 
such a noise, that Tom came on shore and went up to 
see what was the matter. 

And there he found them holding their great caucus, 
which they hold every year in the North ; and all their 
stump-orators were speechifying ; and for a tribune, the 
speaker stood on an old sheep’s skull. 

And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the 
clever things they had done ; how many lambs’ eyes 
they had picked out, and how many dead bullocks 
they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had 
swallowed whole, and how many grouse-eggs they had 
flown away with, stuck on the point of their bills, 
which is the hoodie-crow’s particularly clever feat, of 
which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokany- 
baro ; and what that is, I won’t tell you. 

And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest 
young lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in 


256 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the middle, and all began abusing and vilifying, and 
rating, and bullyragging at her, because she had stolen 
no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that she 



would not steal any. So she was to be tried publicly 
by their laws (for the hoodies always try some 
offenders in their great yearly parliament). And there 


VII A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 257 

she stood in the middle, in her black gown and gray 
hood, looking as meek and as neat as a Quakeress, and 
they all bawled at her at once — 

And it was in vain that she pleaded — 

That she did not like grouse-eggs ; 

That she could get her living very well without them ; 

That she was afraid to eat them , for fear of the 
gamekeepers ; 

That she had not the heart to eat them , because the 
grouse were such pretty , kind , jolly birds ; 

And a dozen reasons more. 

For all the other scaul- crows set upon her, and 
pecked her to death there and then, before Tom could 
come to help her ; and then flew away, very proud of 
what they had done. 

Now, was not this a scandalous transaction ? 

But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who 
do every one just what he likes, and make other people 
do so too ; so that, for any freedom of speech, thought, 
or action, which is allowed among them, they might 
as well be American citizens of the new school. 

But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her 
nine new sets of feathers running, and turned her at 
last into the most beautiful bird of paradise with a 
green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat 
fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs 
grow. 

And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account 
s 


258 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


with, the wicked hoodies. For, as they flew away, 
what should they find but a nasty dead dog ? — on 
which they all set to work, pecking and gobbling and 
cawing and quarrelling to their hearts’ content. But 
the moment afterwards, they all threw up their bills 
into the air, and gave one screech; and then turned 
head over heels backward, and fell down dead, one 
hundred and twenty -three of them at once. For 
why ? The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a 
dream, to fill the dead dog full of strychnine ; and 
so he did. 

And after a while the birds began to gather at 
Allfowlsness, in thousands and tens of thousands, 
blackening all the air ; swans and brant geese, harle- 
quins and eiders, harolds and garganeys, smews and 
goosanders, divers and loons, grebes and dovekies, auks 
and razor-bills, gannets and petrels, skuas and terns, 
with gulls beyond all naming or numbering ; and they 
paddled and washed and splashed and combed and 
brushed themselves on the sand, till the shore was 
white with feathers ; and they quacked and clucked 
and gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped 
as they talked over matters with their friends, and 
settled where they were to go and breed that summer, 
till you might have heard them ten miles off; and 
lucky it was for them that there was no one to 
hear them but the old keeper, who lived all alone 
upon the Ness, in a turf hut thatched with heather 
and fringed round with great stones slung across the 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


259 



roof by bent-ropes, lest the winter gales should blow 
the hut right away. But he never minded the birds 
nor hurt them, because they were not in season ; 
indeed, he minded but two things in the whole world, 
and those were, his Bible and his grouse ; for he was 


as good an old Scotchman as ever knit stockings on a 
winter’s night : only, when all the birds were going, 
he toddled out, and took off his cap to them, and 
wished them a merry journey and a safe return ; and 
then gathered up all the feathers which they had left, 


260 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


and cleaned them to sell down south, and make feather- 
beds for stuffy people to lie on. 

Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether 
they would take Tom to Shiny Wall : but one set was 
going to Sutherland, and one to the Shetlands, and 
one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one to 
Iceland, and one to Greenland : but none would go to 
Shiny Wall. So the good-natured petrels said that 
they would show him part of the way themselves, but 
they were only going as far as Jan Mayen’s Land ; and 
after that he must shift for himself. 

And then all the birds rose up, and streamed away 
in long black lines, north, and north-east, and north- 
west, across the bright blue summer sky ; and their 
cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten 
thousand peals of bells. Only the puffins stayed 
behind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid their 
eggs in the rabbit-burrows ; which was rough practice, 
certainly ; but a man must see to his own family. 

And, as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward, 
it began to blow right hard ; for the old gentleman in 
the gray great -coat, who looks after the big copper 
boiler, in the gulf of Mexico, had got behindhand with 
his work ; so Mother Carey had sent an electric 
message to him for more steam ; and now the steam 
was coming, as much in an hour as ought to have 
come in a week, puffing and roaring and swishing and 
swirling, till you could not see where the sky ended 
and the sea began. But Tom and the petrels never 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


261 


cared, for the gale was right abaft, and away they 
went over the crests of the billows, as merry as so 
many flying-fish. 

And at last they saw an ugly sight — the black 
side of a great ship, water-logged in the trough of the 
sea. Her funnel and her masts were overboard, and 
swayed and surged under her lee ; her decks were 
swept as clean as a barn floor, and there was no living 
soul on board. 

The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her ; 
for they were very sorry indeed, and also they expected 
to find some salt pork ; and Tom scrambled on board 
of her and looked round, frightened and sad. 

And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the 
bulwark, lay a baby fast asleep ; the very same baby, 
Tom saw at once, which he had seen in the singing 
lady’s arms. 

He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but 
behold, from under the cot out jumped a little black 
and tan terrier dog, and began barking and snapping 
at Tom, and would not let him touch the cot. 

Tom knew the dog’s teeth could not hurt him : but 
at least it could shove him away, and did ; and he and 
the dog fought and struggled, for he wanted to help 
the baby, and did not want to throw the poor dog 
overboard : but as they were struggling, there came a 
tall green sea, and walked in over the weather side of 
the ship, and swept them all into the waves. 

“ Oh, the baby, the baby ! ” screamed Tom : but 


262 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


the next moment he did not scream at all ; for he saw 
the cot settling down through the green water, with 
the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep ; and he saw the 
fairies come up from below, and carry baby and cradle 
gently down in their soft arms ; and then he knew it 



was all right, and that there would be a new water- 
baby in St. Brandan’s Isle. 

And the poor little dog ? 

Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he 
sneezed so hard, that he sneezed himself clean out of 
his skin, and turned into a water-dog, and jumped and 


vri 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


263 


danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the 
waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, 
and followed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of- 
No where. 

Then they went on again, till they began to see 
the peak of Jan Mayen’s Land, standing up like a 
white sugar-loaf, two miles above the clouds. 

And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly- 
mocks, who were feeding on a dead whale. 

“ These are the fellows to show you the way,” said 
Mother Carey’s chickens ; “ we cannot help you farther 
north. We don’t like to get among the ice pack, for 
fear it should nip our toes : but the mollys dare fly 
anywhere.” 

So the petrels called to the mollys : but they were 
so busy and greedy, gobbliug and pecking and splutter- 
ing and fighting over the blubber, that they did not 
take the least notice. 

“ Come, come,” said the petrels, “ you lazy greedy 
lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother 
Carey, and if you don’t attend on him, you won’t earn 
your discharge from her, you know.” 

“ Greedy we are,” says a great fat old molly, “ but 
lazy we ain’t; and, as for lubbers, we’re no more 
lubbers than you. Let’s have a look at the lad.” 

And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared 
at him in the most impudent way (for the mollys are 
audacious fellows, as all whalers know), and then asked 
him where he hailed from, and what land he sighted last. 


‘264 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


And, when Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and 
said he was a good plucked one to have got so far. 

* Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, “ and 
give this little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother 
Carey’s sake. We’ve eaten blubber enough for to-day, 



and we’ll e’en work out a hit of our time by helping 
the lad.” 

So the mollys took Tom up on their hacks, and 
flew off with him, laughing and joking — and oh, how 
they did smell of train oil ! 

" Who are you, you jolly birds ? ” asked Tom. 

"We are the spirits of the old Greenland skippers 
(as every sailor knows), who hunted here, right whales 
and horse-whales, full hundreds of years agone. But, 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


265 


because we were saucy and greedy, we were all turned 
into mollys, to eat whale’s blubber all our days. But 
lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against 
any man in the North seas, though we don’t hold with 
this new-fangled steam. And it’s a shame of those 
black imps of petrels to call us so ; but because they’re 
her grace’s pets, they think they may say anything 
they like.” 

“ And who are you ? ” asked Tom of him, for he 
saw that he was the king of all the birds. 

“ My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good 
skipper was I ; and my name will last to the world’s 
end, in spite of all the wrong I did. For I discovered 
Hudson River, and I named Hudson’s Bay ; and many 
have come in my wake that dared not have shown me 
the way. But I was a hard man in my time, that’s 
truth, and stole the poor Indians off the coast of Maine, 
and sold them for slaves down in Virginia; and at 
last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in these very 
seas, that they set me adrift in an open boat, and I 
never was heard of more. So now I’m the king of all 
mollys, till I’ve worked out my time.” 

And now they came to the edge of the pack, and 
beyond it they could see Shiny Wall looming, through 
mist, and snow, and storm. But the pack rolled 
horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and 
roared, and leapt upon each other’s backs, and ground 
each other to powder, so that Tom was afraid to 
venture among them, lest he should be ground to 


266 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


powder too. And he was the more afraid, when he 
saw lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a 
gallant ship ; some with masts and yards all standing, 
some with the seamen frozen fast on hoard. Alas, 
alas, for them ! They were all true English hearts ; 
and they came to their end like good knights-errant, 
in searching for the white gate that never was opened 
yet. 

But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and 
Hew with them safe over the pack and the roaring ice 
giants, and set them down at the foot of Shiny Wall. 

“ And where is the gate ? ” asked Tom. 

“ There is no gate,” said the mollys. 

“ No gate ? ” cried Tom, aghast. 

“ None ; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole 
of the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have 
found to their cost ; and if there had been, they’d have 
killed by now every right whale that swims the sea.” 

“ What am I to do, then ? ” 

“ Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.” 

“ I’ve not come so far to turn now,” said Tom ; “ so 
here goes for a header.” 

“ A lucky voyage to you, lad,” said the mollys ; “ we 
knew you were one of the right sort. So good-bye.” 

“ Why don’t you come too ? ” asked Tom. 

But the mollys only wailed sadly, “We can’t go 
yet, we can’t go yet/’ and flew away over the pack. 

So Tom dived under the great white gate which 
never was opened yet, and went on in black darkness, 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


267 


at the bottom of the sea, for seven days and seven 
nights. And yet he was not a bit frightened. Why 
should he be ? He was a brave English lad, whose 
business is to go out and see all the world. 

And at last he saw the light, and clear clear water 
overhead ; and up he came a thousand fathoms, among 
clouds of sea -moths, which fluttered round his head. 
There were moths with pink heads and wings and opal 
bodies, that flapped about slowly ; moths with brown 
wings that flapped about quickly ; yellow shrimps that 
hopped and skipped most quickly of all ; and jellies of 
all the colours in the world, that neither hopped nor 
skipped, but only dawdled and yawned, and would not 
get out of his way. The dog snapped at them till his 
jaws were tired ; but Tom hardly minded them at all, 
he was so eager to get to the top of the water, and see 
the pool where the good whales go. 

And a very large pool it was, miles and miles 
across, though the air was so clear that the ice cliffs 
on the opposite side looked as if they were close at 
hand. All round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and 
spires and battlements, and caves and bridges, and 
stories and galleries, in which the ice-fairies live, and 
drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother Carey’s 
pool may lie calm from year’s end to year’s end. And 
the sun acted policeman, and walked round outside 
every day, peeping just over the top of the ice wall, to 
see that all went right ; and now and then lie played 
conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to 


268 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. VII 


amuse the ice-fairies. For he would make himself into 
four or five suns at once, or paint the sky with rings 
and crosses and crescents of white fire, and stick him- 
self in the middle of them, and wink at the fairies ; 
and I daresay they were very much amused ; for any- 
thing’s fun in the country. 

And there the good whales lay, the happy sleepy 
beasts, upon the still oily sea. They were all right 
whales, you must know, and tinners, and razor-backs, 
and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long 
ivory horns. But the sperm whales are such raging, 
ramping, roaring, rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother 
Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in 
Peacepool. So she packs them away in a great pond 
by themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and 
sixty-three miles south-south-east of Mount Erebus, 
the great volcano in the ice ; and there they butt each 
other with their ugly noses, day and night from year’s 
end to year’s end. 

But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying 
about like the black hulls of sloops, and blowing every 
now and then jets of white steam, or sculling round 
with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths to 
swim down their throats. There were no threshers 
there to thresh their poor old backs, or sword-fish to 
stab their stomachs, or saw-fish to rip them up, or ice- 
sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, or whalers to 
harpoon and lance them. They were quite safe and 
happy there ; and all they had to do was to wait 














270 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


quietly iu Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them 
to make them out of old beasts into new. 

Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the 
way to Mother Carey. 

“ There she sits in the middle,” said the whale. 

Tom looked; hut he could see nothing in the 
middle of the pool, but one peaked iceberg : and he 
said so. 

“ That’s Mother Carey,” said the whale, “ as you 
will find when you get to her. There she sits making 
old beasts into new all the year round.” 

“ How does she do that ? ” 

“ That’s her concern, not mine,” said the old whale ; 
and yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there 
swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish 
no bigger than pins’ heads, a string of salpse nine yards 
long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave each 
other a parting pinch all round, tucked their legs under 
their stomachs, and determined to die decently, like 
Julius Caesar. 

“ I suppose,” said Tom, “ she cuts up a great whale 
like you into a whole shoal of porpoises ? ” 

At which the old whale laughed so violently that he 
coughed up all the creatures ; who swam away again 
very thankful at having escaped out of that terrible 
whalebone net of his, from which bourne no traveller 
returns ; and Tom went on to the iceberg, wondering. 

And, when he came near it, it took the form of the 
grandest old lady he had ever seen — a white marble 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


271 


lady, sitting on a white marble throne. And from the 
foot of the throne there swum away, out and out into, 
the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more shapes 
and colours than man ever dreamed. And they were 



Mother CareyV children, whom she makes out of the 
sea-water all day long. 

He expected, of course — like some grown people 
who ought to know better — to find her snipping, 
piecing, fitting, . stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, 
planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding, 


272 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men 
do when they go to work to make anything. 

But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her 
chin upon her hand, looking down into the sea with 
two great grand blue eyes, as blue as the sea itself. 
Her hair was as white as the snow — for she was very 
very old — in fact, as old as anything which you are 
likely to come across, except the difference between 
right and wrong. 

And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very 
kindly. 

“ What do you want, my little man ? It is long 
since I have seen a water-baby here.” 

Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the 
Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

“ You ought to know yourself, for you have been 
there already.” 

“ Have I, ma’am ? I’m sure I forget all about it.” 

“ Then look at me.” 

And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he 
recollected the way perfectly. 

How, was not that strange ? 

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom. “Then I won’t 
trouble your ladyship any more ; I hear you are very 
busy.” 

“ I am never more busy than I am now,” she said, 
without stirring a finger. 

“ I heard, ma’am, that you were always making 
new beasts out of old.” 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


273 


“ So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble 
myself to make things, my little dear. I sit here and 
make them make themselves/’ 

“ You are a clever fairy, indeed,” thought Tom. 
And he was quite right. 

That is a grand trick of good old Mother Carey’s, 
and a grand answer, which she has had occasion to 
make several times to impertinent people. 

There was once, for instance, a fairy who was so 
clever that she found out how to make butterflies. I 
don’t mean sham ones ; no : but real live ones, which 
would fly, and eat, and lay eggs, and do everything 
that they ought; and she was so proud of her skill 
that she went flying straight off to the North Pole, to 
boast to Mother Carey how she could make butterflies. 

But Mother Carey laughed. 

“Know, silly child,” she said, “that any one can 
make things, if they will take time and trouble enough : 
but it is not every one who, like me, can make things 
make themselves.” 

But people do not yet believe that Mother Carey 
is as clever as all that comes to ; and they will not till 
they, too, go the journey to the Other-end-of-Nowhere. 

“And now, my pretty little man,” said Mother 
Carey, “ you are sure you know the way to the Other- 
end-of-Nowhere ? ” 

Tom thought ; and behold, he had forgotten it 
utterly. 

“ That is because you took your eyes off me.” 

T 


274 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


Tom looked at her again, and recollected ; and then 
looked away, and forgot in an instant. 

“But what am I to do, ma’am ? For I can’t keep 
looking at you when I am somewhere else.” 

“You must do without me, as most people have to 
do, for nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of 
their lives; and look at the dog instead; for he knows 
the way well enough, and will not forget it. Besides, 
you may meet some very queer-tempered people there, 
who will not let you pass without this passport of 
mine, which you must hang round your neck and 
take care of ; and, of course, as the dog will always go 
behind you, you must go the whole way backward.” 

“ Backward ! ” cried Tom. “ Then I shall not he 
able to see my way.” 

“ On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not 
see a step before you, and be certain to go wrong ; but, 
if you look behind you, and watch carefully whatever 
you have passed, and especially keep your eye on the 
dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can’t go wrong, 
then you will know what is coming next, as plainly as 
if you saw it in a looldng-gl,ass.” 

Tom was very much astonished : but he obeyed 
her, for he had learnt always to believe what the 
fairies told him. 

“ So it is, my dear child,” said Mother Carey ; “ and 
I will tell you a story, which will show you that I am 
perfectly right, as it is my custom to be. 

“ Once on a time, there were two brothers. One 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


275 


was called Prometheus, because he always looked 
before him, and boasted that he was wise beforehand. 
The other was called Epimetheus, because he always 
looked behind him, and did not boast at all ; but said 
humbly, like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy 
after the event. 

“ Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of 
course, and invented all sorts of wonderful things. 
But, unfortunately, when they were set to work, to 
work was just what they would not do : wherefore very 
little has come of them, and very little is left of them ; 
and now nobody knows what they were, save a few 
archseological old gentlemen who scratch in queer 
corners, and find little there save Ptinum Furem, 
Blaptem Mortisagam, Acarum Horridum, and Tineam 
Laciniarum. 

“ But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, certainly, 
and went among men for a clod, and a muff, and a 
milksop, and a slowcoach, and a bloke, and a boodle, 
and so forth. And very little he did, for many years : 
but what he did, he never had to do over again. 

“ And what happened at last ? There came to the 
two brothers the most beautiful creature that ever was 
seen. Pandora by name ; which means, All the gifts of 
the Gods. But because she had a strange box in her 
hand, this fanciful, forecasting, suspicious, prudential, 
theoretical, deductive, prophesying Prometheus, who 
was always settling what was going to happen, would 
have nothing to do with pretty Pandora and her box. 


276 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took every- 
thing that came ; and married her for better for worse, 
as every man ought, whenever he has even the chance 
of a good wife. And they opened the box between 
them, of course, to see what was inside : for, else, of 
what possible use could it have been to them ? 

“ And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to ; 
all the children of the four great bogies, Self-will, 
Ignorance, Fear, and Dirt — for instance : 


Measles, 

Monks, 

Scarlatina, 

Idols, 

Hooping-coughs , 
Popes, 

Wars, 

Peacemongers, 


Famines, 
Quacks, 
Unpaid tills, 
Tight stays, 
Potatoes, 

Bad Wine , 

Despots, 

Demagogues, 


And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls. 


But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and 
that was, Hope. 

“ So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, as 
most men do in this world : but he got the three best 
things in the world into the bargain — a good wife, and 
experience, and hope : while Prometheus had just as 
much trouble, and a great deal more (as you will hear), 
of his own making ; with nothing beside, save fancies 
spun out of his own brain, as a spider spins her web 
out of her stomach. 


VII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


277 


“And Prometheus kept on looking before him so 
far ahead, that as he was running about with a box of 
lucifers (which were the only useful things he ever 
invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on 
his own nose, and tumbled down (as most deductive 
philosophers do), whereby he set the Thames on fire ; 
and they have hardly put it out again yet. So he had 
to be chained to the top of a mountain, with a vulture 
by him to give* him a peck whenever he stirred, lest 
he should turn the whole world upside down with his 
prophecies and his theories. 

“ But stupid old Epimetheus went working and 
grubbing on, with the help of his wife Pandora, always 
looking behind him to see what had happened, till he 
really learnt to know now and then what would happen 
next; and understood so well which side his bread 
was buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he 
began to make things which would work, and go on 
working, too ; to till and drain the ground, and to make 
looms, and ships, and railroads, and steam ploughs, and 
electric telegraphs, and all the things which you see in 
the Great Exhibition ; and to foretell famine, and bad 
weather, and the price of stocks and (what is hardest of 
all) the next vagary of the great idol Whirligig, which 
some call Public Opinion ; till at last he grew as rich 
as a Jew, and as fat as a farmer, and people thought 
twice before they meddled with him, but only once before 
they asked him to help them; for, because he earned 
his money well, lie could afford to spend it well likewise. 


278 THE WATER-BABIES chap. 

“ And his children are the men of science, who get 
good lasting work done in the world ; but the children 
of Prometheus are the fanatics, and the theorists, and 
the bigots, and the bores, and the noisy windy people, 



who go telling silly folk wnat will happen, instead of 
looking to see what has happened already.” 

Now, was not Mother Carey’s a wonderful story ? 
And, I am happy to say, Tom believed it every word, 
for so it happened to Tom likewise. He was 


VII . 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


279 


very sorely tried ; for though, by keeping the dog to 
heels (or rather to toes, for he had to walk backward), 
he could see pretty well which way the dog was hunt- 
ing, yet it was much slower work to go backwards 
than to go forwards. But, what was more trying 
still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool, than 
there came running to him all the conjurors, fortune- 
tellers, astrologers, prophesiers, projectors, prestigiators, 



as many as were in those parts (and there are too 
many of them everywhere), Old Mother Shipton on 
her broomstick, with Merlin, Thomas the Bhymer, 
Gerbertus, Babanus Maurus, Nostradamus, Zadkiel, 
Baphael, Moore, Old Nixon, and a good many in black 
coats and white ties who might have known better, 
considering in what century they were born, all bawl- 
ing and screaming at him, “ Look a-head, only look 


280 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. VII 


a-head ; and we will show you what man never saw 
before, and right away to the end of the world ! ” 

But I am proud to say that, though Tom had not 
been to Cambridge — for, if he had, he would have 
certainly been senior wrangler — he was such a little 
dogged, hard, gnarly, foursquare brick of an English 
boy, that he never turned his head round once all the 
way from Peacepool to the Other -end -of -No where : 
but kept his eye on the dog, and let him pick out the 
scent, hot or cold, straight or crooked, wet or dry, up 
hill or down dale ; by which means he never made a 
single mistake, and saw all the wonderful and hitherto 
by-no-mortal-man-imagined things, which it is my duty 
to relate to you in the next chapter. 





“ Come to me, 0 ye children ! 

For I hear you at your play ; 

And the questions that perplexed me 
Have vanished quite away. 

“Ye open the Eastern windows, 

That look towards the sun, 

Where thoughts are singing swallows. 
And the brooks of morning run. 

***** 



hor what are all our contrivings 
And the wisdom of our books, 

When compared with your caresses, 

And the gladness of your looks ? 

‘ Ye are better than all the ballads 
That ever were sung or said ; 

For ye are living poems, 

And all the rest are dead. ” — Longfellow. 


CHAPTER VIII and LAST 



ERE begins the 
never -to-be-too- 
much - studied 
account of the 
nine - hundred - and - 
ninety- ninth part of 
the wonderful things 
which Tom saw on 
his journey to the 
Other - end - of - No - 
where ; which all good 
little children are re- 
quested to read; that, 
if ever they get to the 
0 ther-en d-of -N o where, 
as they may very prob- 
ably do, they may not 


burst out laughing, or try to run away, or do any 
other silly vulgar thing which may offend Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid. 

How, as soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came 


284 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


to the white lap of the great sea -mother, ten thousand 
fathoms deep; where she makes world -pap all day 
long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants 
to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain- 
loaves and island- cakes. 

And there Tom was very near being kneaded up 
in the world-pap, and turned into a fossil water-baby ; 
which would have astonished the Geological Society 
of New Zealand some hundreds of thousands of years 
hence. 

For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea- 
twilight, on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of 
a hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a pump- 
ing, as of all the steam-engines in the world at once. 
And, when he came near, the water grew boiling-hot ; 
not that that hurt him in the least : but it also grew 
as foul as gruel ; and every moment he stumbled over 
dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and whales, 
which had been killed by the hot water. 

And at last he came to the great sea-serpent him- 
self, lying dead at the bottom ; and as he was too 
thick to scramble over, Tom had to walk round him 
three-quarters of a mile and more, which put him out 
of his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he 
came to the place called Stop. And there he stopped, 
and just in tifhe. 

For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the 
'bottom of the sea, up which was rushing and roaring 
clear steam enough to work all the engines in the 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


285 


world at once ; so clear, indeed, that it was quite 
light at moments ; and Tom could see almost up to 
the top of the water above, and down below into the 
pit for nobody knows how far. 

But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he 
got such a rap on the nose from pebbles, that he 
jumped back again ; for the steam, as it rushed up, 
rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up 
into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes ; 
and then it spread all around, and sank again, and 
covered in the dead fish so fast, that before Tom had 
stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to 
his ankles, and began to be afraid that he should have 
been buried alive. 

And perhaps he would have been, but that while 
he was thinking, the whole piece of ground on which 
he stood was torn off and blown upwards, and away 
flew Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what 
was coming next. 

At last he stopped — thump ! and found himself 
tight in the legs of the most wonderful bogy which he 
had ever seen. 

It had I don’t know how many wings, as big as 
the sails of a windmill, and spread out in a ring like 
them ; and with them it hovered over the steam which 
rushed up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain. 
And for every wing above it had a leg below, with a 
claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root ; 
and in the middle it had no stomach and one eye ; and 


286 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


as for its mouth, that was all on one side, as the 
madreporiform tubercle in a star-fish is. Well, it was 
a very strange beast ; but no stranger than some dozens 
which you may see. 

“ What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, 

“ getting in my way ? ” and it tried to drop Tom : but 
he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer 
where he was. 

So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand 
was. And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered : 

“ I am too old to be taken in in that way. You 
are come after gold — I know you are.” 

“ Gold ! What is gold ? ” And really Tom did 
not know; but the suspicious old bogy would not 
believe him. 

But after a while Tom began to understand a little. 
For, as the vapours came up out of the hole, the bogy 
smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and 
sorted them with his combs; and then, when they 
steamed up through them against his wings, they were 
changed into showers and streams of metal. From 
one wing fell gold-dust, and from another silver, and 
from another copper, and from another tin, and from 
another lead, and so on, and sank into the soft mud, 
into veins and cracks, and hardened there. Whereby 
it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal. 

But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam 
below, and the hole was left empty in an instant : 
and then down rushed the water into the hole, in such 


VIII A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 287 

a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as 
fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day’s 
work, like a fair fall with the hounds ; so all he did 
was to say to Tom — 

“Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you 
are in earnest, which I don’t believe.” 

You’ll* soon see,” said Tom; and away he went, 
as bold as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the rush- 
ing cataract like a salmon at Ballisodare. 

And, when he got to the bottom, he swam till 
he was washed on shore safe upon the Other- end - 
of- Nowhere ; and he found it, to his surprise, as 
most other people do, much more like This-End- 
of- Somewhere than he had been in the habit of 
expecting. 

And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where 
all the stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down 
dale, like leaves in a winter wood; and there he saw 
people digging and grubbing among them, to make 
worse books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to 
save the dust of it ; and a very good trade they drove 
thereby, especially among children. 

Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain 
of messes, and the territory of tuck, where the ground 
was very sticky, for it was all made of bad toffee (not 
Everton toffee, of course), and full of deep cracks and 
holes choked with wind-fallen fruit, and green goose- 
berries, and sloes, and crabs, and whinberries, and hips 
and haws, and all the nasty things which little children 


288 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


will eat, if they can get them. But the fairies hide 
them out of the way in that country as fast as they 
can, and very hard work they have, and of very little 
use it is. For as fast as they hide away the old 
trash, foolish and wicked people make fresh trash full 
of lime and poisonous paints, and actually go and steal 
receipts out of old Madame Science’s big book to 
invent poisons for little children, and sell them at 
wakes and fairs and tuck-shops. Very well. Let 
them go on. Dr. Letheby and Dr. Hassall cannot 
catch them, though they are setting traps for them all 
day long. But the Fairy with the birch-rod will catch 
them all in time, and make them begin at one corner 
of their shops, and eat their way out at the other : by 
which time they will have got such stomach-aches as 
will cure them of poisoning little children. 

Next he saw all the little people in the world, 
writing all the little books in the world, about all the 
other little people in the world ; probably because 
they had no great people to write about : and if the 
names of the books were not Squeeky, nor the Pump- 
lighter, nor the Narrow Narrow World, nor the Hills 
of the Chattermuch, nor the Children’s Twaddeday, 
why then they were something else. And all the rest 
of the little people in the world read the books, and 
thought themselves each as good as the President ; and 
perhaps they were right, for every one knows his own 
business best. But Tom thought he would sooner 
have a jolly good fairy tale, about Jack the Giant- 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


289 


killer or Beauty and the Beast, which taught him 
something that he didn’t know already. 

And next he came to the centre of Creation (the 
hub, they call it there), which lies in latitude 4 2 '21° 
south, and longitude 108’56° east. 

And there he found all the wise people instructing 
mankind in the science of spirit-rapping, while their 
house was burning over their heads : and when Tom 
told them of the fire, they held an indignation meeting 
forthwith, and unanimously determined to hang Tom’s 
dog for coming into their country with gunpowder in 
his mouth. Tom couldn’t help saying that though 
they did fancy they had carried all the wit away 
with them out of Lincolnshire two hundred years ago, 
yet if they had had one such Lincolnshire nobleman 
among them as good old Lord Yarborough, he would 
have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other 
people’s dogs. But it was of no use, and the dog was 
hanged : and Tom couldn’t even have his carcase ; for 
they had abolished the have -his -carcase act in that 
country, for fear lest when rogues fell out, honest men 
should come by their own. And so they would have 
succeeded perfectly, as they always do, only that (as 
they also always do they failed in one little particular, 
viz. that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, 
but bit their fingers so abominably that they were 
forced to let him go, and Tom likewise, as British 
subjects. Whereon they recommenced rapping for the 
spirits of their fathers ; and very much astonished the 


290 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


poor old spirits were when they came, and saw how, 
according to the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, their 
descendants had weakened their constitution by hard 
living. 

Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne 
(which some call Hogues’ Harbour ; but they are 
wrong; for that is in the middle of Bramshill Bushes, 
and the county police have cleared it out long ago). 
There every one knows his neighbour’s business better 
than his own ; and a very noisy place it is, as might 
be expected, considering that all the inhabitants are 
ex officio on the wrong side of the house in the 
“ Parliament of Man, and the Federation of the World ; ” 
and are always making wry mouths, and crying that 
the fairies’ grapes were sour. 

There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driv- 
ing hammers, birds’ nests taking boys, books making 
authors, bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving 
cats, dead dogs drilling live lions, blind brigadiers 
shelfed as principals of colleges, play-actors not in the 
least shelfed as popular preachers ; and, in short, every 
one set to do something which he had not learnt, 
because in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, 
he had failed. 

There stands the Pantheon of the Great Unsuccess- 
ful, from the builders of the Tower of Babel to those 
of the Trafalgar Fountains ; in which politicians lecture 
on the constitutions which ought to have marched, 
conspirators on the revolutions which ought to have 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


291 


succeeded, economists oil the schemes which ought to 
have made every one’s fortune, and projectors on the 
discoveries which ought to have set the Thames on 
fire. There cobblers lecture on orthopedy (whatsoever 
that may be) because they cannot sell their shoes ; and 
poets on ^Esthetics (whatsoever that may be) because 
they cannot sell their poetry. There philosophers; 
demonstrate that England would be the freest and 
richest country in the world, if she would only turn 
Papist again ; penny-a-liners abuse the Times, because 
they have not wit enough to get on its staff ; and 
young ladies walk about with lockets of Charles the 
First’s hair (or of somebody else’s, when the Jews’ 
genuine stock is used up), inscribed with the neat and 
appropriate legend — which indeed is popular through 
all that land, and which, I hope, you will learn to 
translate in due time and to perpend likewise : — 

“ Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa jpuellis” 

When he got into the middle of the town, they all 
set on him at once, to show him his way ; or rather, 
to show him that he did not know his way ; for as for 
asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever 
thought of that. 

But one pulled him hither, and another poked him 
thither, and a third cried — 

“You mustn’t go west, I tell you; it is destruction 
to go west.” 

“ But I am not going west, as you may see,” said Tom. 


292 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAr. 


And another, “ The east lies here, my dear ; I 
assure you this is the east.” 

" But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom. 

“ Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are 
going, you are going wrong,” cried they all with one 
voice — which was the only thing which they ever 
agreed about ; and all pointed at once to all the 
thirty-and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought 
all the sign-posts in England had got together, and 
fallen fighting. 

And whether he would have ever escaped out of 
the town, it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it 
into his head that they were going to pull his master 
in pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the 
gastrocnemius muscle, that he gave them some business 
of their own to think of at last ; and while they were 
rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe 
away. 

On the borders of that island he found Gotham, 
where the wise men live; the same who dragged the 
pond because the moon had fallen into it, and planted 
a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. 
And he found them bricking up the town gate, because 
it was so wide that little folks could not get through. 
And, when he asked why, they told him they were 
expanding their liturgy. So he went on ; for it was 
no business of his : only he could not help saying that 
in his country, if the kitten could not get in at the 
same hole as the cat, she might stay outside and mew. 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


293 


But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came 
to the island of the Golden Asses, where nothing but 
thistles grow. For there they were all turned into 
mokes with ears a yard long, for meddling with matters 
which they do not understand, as Lucius did in the 
story. And like him, mokes they must remain, till, 
by the laws of development, the thistles develop into 
roses. Till then, they must comfort themselves with 
the thought, that the longer their ears are, the thicker 
their hides ; and so a good beating don’t hurt them. 

Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in 
which are no less than thirty and odd kings, beside 
half a dozen Republics, and perhaps more by next 
mail. 

And there he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and 
destructive war, waged by the princes and potentates 
of those parts, both spiritual and temporal, against 
what do you think ? One thing I am sure of. That 
unless I told you, you would never know ; nor how 
they waged that war either ; for all their strategy and 
art military consisted in the safe and easy process of 
stopping their ears and screaming, “ Oh, don’t tell us ! ” 
and then running away. 

So when Tom came into that land, he found them 
all, high and low, man, woman, and child, running for 
their lives day and night continually, and entreating 
not to be told they didn’t know what : only the land 
being an island, and they having a dislike to the water 
(being a musty lot for the most part), they ran round 


294 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


and round the shore for ever, which (as the island was 
exactly of the same circumference as the planet on 
which we have the honour of living) was hard work, 
especially to those who had business to look after. 
But before them, as bandmaster and fugleman, ran a 
gentleman shearing a pig; the melodious strains of 
which animal led them for ever, if not to conquest, 
still to flight ; and kept up their spirits mightily with 
the thought that they would at least have the pig’s 
wool for their pains. 

And running after them, day and night, came such 
a poor, lean, seedy, hard-worked old giant, as ought to 
have been cockered up, and had a good dinner given 
him, and a good wife found him, and been set to play 
with little children ; and then he would have been a 
very presentable old fellow after all ; for he had a heart, 
though it was considerably overgrown with brains. 

He was made up principally of fish bones and 
parchment, put together with wire and Canada balsam ; 
and smelt strongly of spirits, though he never drank 
anything but water: but spirits he used somehow, 
there was no denying. He had a great pair of spec- 
tacles on his nose, and a butterfly- net in one hand, 
and a geological hammer in the other ; and was hung 
all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes/bottles, 
microscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, 
scalpels, forceps, photographic apparatus, and all other 
tackle for finding out everything about everything, 
and a little more too. And, most strange of all, he 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


295 


was running not forwards but backwards, as fast as he 
could. 

Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, 
who stood his ground and dodged between his legs ; 
and the giant, when he had passed him, looked down, 
and cried, as if he was quite pleased and comforted, — 

“ What ? who are you ? And you actually don’t 
run away, like all the rest ? ” But he had to take 
his spectacles off, Tom remarked, in order to see him 
plainly. 

Tom told him who he was ; and the giant pulled 
out a bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with. 

But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged 
between his legs and in front of him ; and then the 
giant could not see him at all. 

“ No, no, no ! ” said Tom, “ I’ve not been round the 
world, and through the world, and up to Mother Carey’s 
haven, beside being caught in a net and called a 
Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled up by 
any old giant like you.” 

And when the giant understood what a great 
traveller Tom had been, he made a truce with him at 
once, and would have kept him there to this day to 
pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding any one 
to tell him what he did not know before. 

“ Ah, you lucky little dog ! ” said he at last, quite 
simply — for he was the simplest, pleasantest, honestest, 
kindliest old Dominie Sampson of a giant that ever 
turned the world upside down without intending it — 


296 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ ah, you lucky little dog ! If I had only been where 
you have been, to see what you have seen ! ” 

“ Well,” said Tom, “ if you want to do that, you 
had best put your head under water for a few ‘hours, 
as I did, and turn into a water -baby, or some other 
baby, and then you might have a chance.” 

“ Turn into a baby, eh ? If I could do that, and 
know what was happening to me for but one hour, I 
should know everything then, and be at rest. But I 
can’t ; I can’t be a little child again ; and I suppose 
if I could, it would be no use, because then I should 
then know nothing about what was happening to me. 
Ah, you lucky little dog ! ” said the poor old giant. 

“ But why do you run after all these poor people ? ” 
said Tom, who liked the giant very much. 

“ My dear, it’s they that have been running after 
me, father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of years, 
throwing stones at me till they have knocked off my 
spectacles fifty times, and calling me a malignant and 
a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced 
the State — goodness only knows what they mean, for 
I never read poetry — and hunting me round and round 
— though catch me they can’t, for every time I go 
over the same ground, I go the faster, and grow the 
bigger. While all I want is to be friends with them, 
and to tell them something to their advantage, like 
Mr. Joseph Ady : only somehow they are so strangely 
afraid of hearing it. But, I suppose I am not a man 
of the world, and have no tact.” 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


297 


“ But why don’t you turn round and tell them so ? ” 

“ Because I can’t. You see, I am one of the sons 
of Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go 
at all.” 

“ But why don’t you stop, and let them come up 
to you ? ” 

“Why, my dear, only think. If I did, all the 
butterflies and cockyolybirds would fly past me, and 
then I should catch no more new species, and should 
grow rusty and mouldy, and die. And I don’t intend 
to do that, my dear ; for I have a destiny before me, 
they say : though what it is I don’t know, and don’t 
care.” 

“ Don’t care ? ” said Tom. 

“No. Do the duty which lies nearest you, and 
catch the first beetle you come across, is my motto ; 
and I have thriven by it for some hundred years. 
Now I must go on. Dear me, while I have been talk- 
ing to you, at least nine new species have escaped me.” 

And on went the giant, behind before, like a bull 
in a china -shop, till he ran into the steeple of the 
great idol temple (for they are all idolaters in those 
parts, of course, else they would never be afraid of 
giants), and knocked the upper half clean off, hurting 
himself horribly about the small of the back. 

But little he cared ; for as soon as the ruins of the 
steeple were well between his legs, he poked and peered 
among the falling stones, and shifted his spectacles, and 
pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and cried — 


298 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure 
Podurellse ! Besides a moth which M. le Boi des 
Papillons (though he, like all Frenchmen, is given to 
hasty inductions) says is confined to the limits of the 
Glacial Drift. This is most important ! ” 

And down he sat on the nave of the temple (not 
being a man of the world) to examine his Podurellse. 
Whereon (as was to be expected) the roof caved in 
bodily, smashing the idols, and sending the priests 
flying out of doors and windows, like rabbits out of a 
burrow when a ferret goes in. 

But he never heeded ; for out of the dust flew a 
bat, and the giant had him in a moment. 

“ Dear me ! This is even more important ! Here 
is a cognate species to that which Macgilliwaukie 
Brown insists is confined to the Buddhist temples of 
Little Thibet ; and now when I look at it, it may be 
only a variety produced by difference of climate ! ” 

And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he 
went ; while all the people ran, being in none the 
better humour for having their temple smashed for 
the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a 
Buddhist bat. 

“Well,” thought Tom, “this is a very pretty 
quarrel, with a good deal to be said on both sides. 
But it is no business of mine.” 

And no more it was, because he was a water-baby, 
and had the original sow by the right ear; which you 
will never have, unless you be a baby, whether of the 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


299 


water, the land, or the air, matters not, provided you 
can only keep on continually being a baby. 

So the giant ran round after the people, and the 
people ran rouud after the giant, and they are running 
unto this day for aught I know, or do not know ; and 
will run till either he, or they, or both, turn into little 
children. And then, as Shakespeare says (and therefore 
it must be true) — 

“ Jack shall have Gill 

Nought shall go ill 

The man shall have his mare again , and all go well” 

Then Tom came to a very famous island, which 
was called, in the days of the great traveller Captain 
Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyas- 
youdid has named it over again, the Isle of Tomtoddies, 
all heads and no bodies. 

And when Tom came near it, he heard such a 
grumbling and grunting and growling and wailing and 
weeping and whining that he thought people must be 
ringing little pigs, or cropping puppies’ ears, or drown- 
ing kittens : but when he came nearer still, he began to 
hear w T ords among the noise ; which was the Tomtoddies’ 
song which they sing morning and evening, and all 
night too, to their great idol Examination — 

“ I can’t learn my lesson : the examiner’s coming ! ” 

And that was the only song which they knew. 

And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw 


300 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


was a great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, 
“ Playthings not allowed here ; ” at which he was so 
shocked that he would not stay to see what was written 
on the other side. Then he looked round for the 
people of the island : but instead of men, women, and 
children, he found nothing but turnips and radishes, 
beet and mangold wurzel, without a single green leaf 
among them, and half of them burst and decayed, with 
toad-stools growing out of them. Those which were 
left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen different 
languages at once, and all of them badly spoken, “ I 
can’t learn my lesson ; do come and help me ! ” And 
one cried, “Can you show me how to extract this 
square root ? ” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the distance be- 
tween a Lyrse and ft Camelopardis ? ” 

And another, “What is the latitude and longitude 
of Snooksville, in Noman’s County, Oregon, TJ.S. ? ” 

And another, “ What was the name of Mutius 
Scsevola’s thirteenth cousin’s grandmother’s maid’s 
cat ? ” 

And another, “ How long would it take a school- 
inspector of average activity to tumble head over heels 
from London to York ? ” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the name of a place 
that nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever hap- 
pened, in a country which has not been discovered yet?” 

And another, “ Can you show me how to correct 
this hopelessly corrupt passage of Graidiocolosyrtus 


VIII A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 301 

Tabenniticus, on the cause why crocodiles have no 
tongues ? ” 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till one would 
have thought they were all trying for tide-waiters’ 
places, or cornetcies in the heavy dragoons. 

“ And what good on earth will it do you if I did 
tell you ? ” quoth Tom. 

Well, they didn’t know that: all they knew was 
the examiner was coming. 

Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest 
nimblecomequick turnip you ever saw filling a hole in 
a crop of swedes, and it cried to him, “ Can you tell 
me anything at all about anything you like ? ” 

“ About what ? ” says Tom. 

“ About anything you like ; for as fast as I learn 
things I forget them again. So my mamma says that 
my intellect is not adapted for methodic science, and 
says that I must go in for general information.” 

Tom told him that he did not know general in- 
formation, nor any officers in the army ; only he had 
a friend once that went for a drummer : but he could 
tell him a great many strange things which he had seen 
in his travels. 

So he told him prettily enough, while the poor 
turnip listened very carefully ; and the more he 
listened, the more he forgot, and the more water ran 
out of him. 

Tom thought he was crying : but it was only his 
poor brains running away, from being worked so hard ; 


302 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed down 
all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing 


was left of him but 
rind and water ; where- 
at Tom ran away in a 
fright, for he thought 
he might be taken up 
for killing the turnip. 

But, on the contrary, 
the turnip’s parents 
were highly delighted, 
and considered him a 
saint and a martyr, 
and put up a long in- 
scription over his tomb 
about his wonderful talents, early development, and 
unparalleled precocity. Were they not a foolish 
couple ? But there was a still more foolish couple 
next to them, who were beating a wretched little 
radish, no bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and 
obstinacy and wilful stupidity, and never knew that 
the reason why it couldn’t learn or hardly even speak 
was, that there was a great worm inside it eating out 
all its brains. But even they are no foolisher than 
some hundred score of papas and mammas, who fetch 
the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and send 
to the dark cupboard instead of to the doctor. 

Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he 
saw, that he was longing to ask the meaning of it ; 



VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


303 


and at last he stumbled over a respectable old stick 
lying half covered with earth. But a very stout and 
worthy, stick it was, for it belonged to good Boger 
Ascham in old time, and had carved on its head King 
Edward the Sixth, with the Bible in his hand. 

“ You see,” said the stick, “ there were as pretty 
little children once as you could wish to see, and 
might have been so still if they had been only left to 
grow up like human beings, and then handed over to 
me ; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of 
letting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get 
birds’ nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, as 
little children should, kept them always at lessons, 
working, working, working, learning week-day lessons 
all week-days, and Sunday lessons all Sunday, and 
weekly examinations every Saturday, and monthly 
examinations every month, and yearly examinations 
every year, everything seven times over, as if once 
was not enough, and enough as good as a feast — till 
their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and 
they were all changed into turnips, with little but 
water inside ; and still their foolish parents actually 
pick the leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they 
should have anything green about them” 

“ Ah ! ” said Tom, “ if dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbe- 
doneby knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, 
and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them 
all as jolly as sand-boys.” 

“ It would be no use,” said the stick. “ They can’t 


304 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


play now, if they tried. Don’t yon see how their legs 
have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by 
never taking any exercise, but sapping and moping 
always in the same place ? But here comes the 
Examiner- of- all -Examiners. So you had better get 
away, I warn you, or he will examine you and your 
dog into the bargain, and set him to examine all the 
other dogs, and you to examine all the other water- 
babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, for his 
nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go down 
chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs, 
in my lady’s chamber, examining all little boys, and 
the little boys’ tutors likewise. But when he is 
thrashed — so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised 
me — I shall have the thrashing of him : and if I 
don’t lay it on with a will it’s a pity.” 

Tom went off : but rather slowly and surlily ; for 
he was somewhat minded to face this same Examiner- 
of-all-Examiners, who came striding among the poor 
turnips, binding heavy burdens and grievous to be 
borne, and laying them on little children’s shoulders, 
like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, and not touching 
the same with one of his fingers ; for he had plenty 
of money, and a fine house to live in, and so forth ; 
which was more than the poor little turnips had. 

But when he got near, he looked so big and burly 
and dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come 
and be examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the 
dog too. And really it was time ; for the poor turnips, 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


305 


in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast 
to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and 
popped by dozens all round him, till the place sounded 
like Aldershot on a field-day, and Tom thought he 
should be blown into the air, dog and all. 

As he went down to the shore he passed the poor 
turnip’s new tomb. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid had 
taken away the epitaph about talents and precocity 
and development, and put up one of her own instead 
which Tom thought much more sensible : — 

“ Instruction sore long time I bore , 

And cramming was in vain ; 

Till heaven did please my woes to ease , 

With water on the brain! 

So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his way, 
singing : — 

“ Farewell , Tomtoddies all ; I thank my stars 
That nought I know save those three royal As : 
Reading and riting sure , with rithmetick, 

Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick! 

Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet : but no 
more was John Bunyan, though he was as wise a man 
as you will meet in a month of Sundays. 

And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the 
folks were all heathens, and worshipped a howling ape. 

And there he found a little boy sitting in the 
middle of the road, and crying bitterly. 

x 


306 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ What are you crying for ? ” said Tom. 

“ Because I am not as frightened as I could wish 
to be.” 

“ Not frightened ? You are a queer little chap : 
but, if you want to be frightened, here goes — Boo ! ” 

“ Ah,” said the little boy, “ that is very kind of 
you ; but I don’t feel that it has made any impression.” 

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on 
him, fettle him over the head with a brick, or anything 
else whatsoever which would give him the slightest 
comfort. 

But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in line long 
words which he had heard other folk use, and which 
therefore, he thought were fit and proper to use him- 
self ; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and 
sent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a 
very good-natured gentleman and lady they were, 
though they were heathens ; and talked quite pleas- 
antly to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man 
arrived, with his thunderbox under his arm. 

And a well-fed, ill-favoured gentleman he was, as 
ever served Her Majesty at Portland. Tom was a 
little frightened at first ; for he thought it was Grimes. 
But he soon saw his mistake : for Grimes always 
looked a man in the face ; and this fellow never did. 
And when he spoke, it was fire and smoke ; and when 
he sneezed, it was squibs and crackers ; and when he 
cried (which he did whenever it paid him), it was 
boiling pitch ; and some of it was sure to stick. 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


307 


“ Here we are again ! ” cried he, like the clown 
in a pantomime. “ So you can’t feel frightened, 
my little dear — eh ? I’ll do that for you. I’ll make 
an impression on you ! Yah ! Boo ! Whirroo ! 
Hullabaloo ! ” 

And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder- 
box, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and danced 
corrobory like any black fellow ; and then he touched 
a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped turnip- 
ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard bogies and 
spring-heeled Jacks, and sallaballas, with such a horrid 
din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, that the little 
boy turned up the whites of his eyes, and fainted 
right away. 

And at that his poor heathen papa and mamma 
were as much delighted as if they had found a gold 
mine ; and fell down upon their knees before the Pow- 
wow man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of 
solid silver and curtains of cloth of gold ; and carried 
him about in it on their own backs : but as soon as 
they had taken him up, the pole stuck to their shoulders, 
and they could not set him down any more, but carried 
him on willynilly, as Sinbad carried the old man of 
the sea : which was a pitiable sight to see ; for the 
father w T as a very brave officer, and wore two swords 
and a blue button ; and the mother was as pretty a 
lady as ever had pinched feet like a Chinese. But 
you see, they had chosen to do a foolish thing just 
once too often ; so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyas- 


308 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


youdid, they had to go on doing it whether they chose 
or not, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. 

Ah ! don’t you wish that some one would go and 
convert those poor heathens, and teach them not to 
frighten their little children into fits ? 

“ Now, then,” said the Powwow man to Tom, 
“ wouldn’t you like to he frightened, my little dear ? 
For I can see plainly that you are a very wicked, 
naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.” 

“You’re another,” quoth Tom, very sturdily. And 
when the man ran at him, and cried “ Boo ! ” Tom ran 
at him in return, and cried “ Boo ! ” likewise, right in 
his face, and set the little dog upon him ; and at his 
legs the dog went. 

At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned 
tail, thunderbox and all, with a “Woof!” like an old 
sow on the common ; and ran for his life, screaming, 
“ Help ! thieves ! murder ! fire ! He is going to kill 
me ! I am a ruined man ! He will murder me ; and 
break, burn, and destroy my precious and invaluable 
thunderbox ; and then you will have no more thunder- 
showers in the land. Help ! help ! help ! ” 

At which the papa and mamma and all the people 
of Oldwivesfabledom flew at Tom, shouting, “ Oh, the 
wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy ! Beat 
him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn 
him ! ” and so forth : but luckily they had nothing to 
shoot, hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid 
all the killing -tackle out of the way a little while 


VIII A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 309 

before ; so they could only pelt him with stones ; and 
some of the stones went clean through him, and came 
out the other side. But he did not mind that a hit ; 
for the holes closed up again as fast as they were 
made, because he was a water-baby. However, he was 
very glad when he was safe out of the country, for the 
noise there made him all but deaf. 

Then he came to a very quiet place, called Leave- 
heavenalone. And there the sun was drawing water 
out of the sea to make steam - threads, and the wind 
was twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they 
had worked between them the loveliest wedding veil 
of Chantilly lace, and hung it up in their own Crystal 
Palace for any one to buy who could afford it ; while 
the good old sea never grudged, for she knew they 
would pay her back honestly. So the sun span, and 
the wind wove, and all went well with the great steam- 
loom ; as is likely, considering — and considering — and 
considering — 

And at last, after innumerable adventures, each 
more wonderful than the last, he saw before him a 
huge building, much bigger, and — what is most sur- 
prising — a little uglier than a certain new lunatic 
asylum, but not built quite of the same materials. 
Hone of it, at least — or, indeed, for aught that I ever 
saw, any part of any other building whatsoever — is 
cased with nine-inch brick inside and out, and filled 
up with rubble between the walls, in order that any 
gentleman who has been confined during Her Majesty’s 


310 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


pleasure may be unconfined during his own pleasure, 
and take a walk in the neighbouring park to improve 
his spirits, after an hour’s light and wholesome labour 
with his dinner-fork or one of the legs of his iron 
bedstead. No. The walls of this building were built 
on an entirely different principle, which need not be 
described, as it has not yet been discovered. 

Tom walked towards this great 
building, wondering what it was, and 
having a strange fancy that he might 
find Mr. Grimes inside it, till he saw 
running toward him, and shouting 
“ Stop ! ” three or four people, who, 
when they came nearer, were nothing 
else than policemen’s truncheons, run- 
ning along without legs or arms. 

Tom was not astonished. He was 
long past that. IJesides, he had seen 
the naviculae in the water move no- 
body knows how, a hundred times, 
without arms, or legs, or anything to 
stand in their stead. Neither was he frightened ; for 
he had been doing no harm. 

So he stopped ; and, when the foremost truncheon 
came up and asked his business, he showed Mother 
Carey’s pass ; and the truncheon looked at it in the 
oddest fashion ; for he had one eye in the middle of 
his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, 
being quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke 



VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


311 


himself, till it was a wonder why he did not tumble 
over ; but, being quite full of the spirit of justice (as 
all policemen, and their truncheons, ought to be), he 
was always in a position of stable equilibrium, which- 
ever way he put himself. 

“ All right — pass on,” said he at last. And then 
he added : “ I had better go with you, young man.” 
And Tom had no objection, for such company was 
both respectable and safe ; so the truncheon coiled its 
thong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself 
up — for the thong had got loose in running — and 
marched on by Tom’s side. 

“ Why have you no policeman to carry you ? ” 
asked Tom, after a while. 

“Because we are not like those clumsy -made 
truncheons in the land-world, which cannot go without 
having a whole man to carry them about. We do our 
own work for ourselves ; and do it very well, though 
I say it who should not.” 

“ Then why have you a thong to your handle ? ” 
asked Tom. 

“ To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are 
off duty.” 

Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, 
till they came up to the great iron door of the prison. 
And there the truncheon knocked twice, with its own 
head. 

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a 
tremendous old brass blunderbuss charged up to the 


312 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


muzzle with slugs, who was the porter ; and Tom 
started back a little at the sight of him. 

“ What case is this ? ” he asked in a deep voice, 
out of his broad bell mouth. 


s I I 



If you please, sir, it is no case \ only a young 
gentleman from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, 
the master-sweep.” 

“ Grimes ? ” said the blunderbuss. And he pulled 
in his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists. 



VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


313 


“ Grimes is up chimney No. 345,” he said from 
inside. “ So the young gentleman had better go on to 
the roof.” 

Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed 
at least ninety miles high, and wondered how he 
should ever get up : hut, when he hinted that to the 
truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. For it 
whisked, round, and gave him such a shove behind as 
sent him up to the roof in no time, with his little dog 
under his arm. 

And there he walked along the leads, till he met 
another truncheon, and told him his errand. 

“Very good,” it said. “Come along: but it will 
be of no use. He is the most unremorseful, hard- 
hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge ; and 
thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are 
not allowed here, of course.” 

So they walked along over the leads, and very 
sooty they were, and Tom thought the chimneys must 
want sweeping very much. But he was surprised to 
see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty 
them in the least. Neither did the live coals, which 
were lying about in plenty, burii him ; for, being a 
water-baby, his radical humours were of a moist and 
cold nature, as you may read at large in Lemnius, 
Cardan, Van Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew 
as much as they could, and no man can know more. 

And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out 
of the top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, 


314 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, 
that Tom could hardly bear to look at him. And in 



his mouth was a pipe ; but it was not a-light ; though 
he was pulling at it with all his might. 



VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


315 


“ Attention, Mr. Grimes,” said the truncheon ; 
“ here is a gentleman come to see you.” 

But Mr. Grimes only said had words ; and kept 
grumbling, “My pipe won’t draw. My pipe won’t 
draw.” 

“ Keep a civil tongue, and attend ! ” said the 
truncheon ; and popped up just like Punch, hitting 
Grimes such a crack over the head with itself, that 
his brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its 
shell. He tried to get his hands out, and rub the 
place : but he could not, for they were stuck fast in 
the chimney. Now he was forced to attend. 

“ Hey ! ” he said, “ why, it’s Tom ! I suppose you 
have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little 
atomy ? ” 

Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to 
help him. 

“ I don’t want anything except beer, and that I 
can’t get ; and a light to this bothering pipe, and that 
I can’t get either.” 

“ I’ll get you one,” said Tom ; and he took up a 
live coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to 
Grimes’ pipe : but it went out instantly. 

“ It’s no use,” said the truncheon, leaning itself up 
against the chimney and looking on. “ I tell you, it 
is no use. His heart is so cold that it freezes every- 
thing that comes near him. You will see that presently, 
plain enough.” 

“ Oh, of course, it’s my fault. Everything’s always 


316 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


my fault,” said Grimes. “Now don’t go to hit me 
again ” (for the truncheon started upright, and looked 
very wicked) ; “ you know, if my arms were only free, 
you daren’t hit me then.” 

The truncheon leant back against the chimney, and 
took no notice of the personal insult, like a well-trained 
policeman as it was, though he was ready enough to 
avenge any transgression against morality or order. 

“ But can’t I help you in any other way ? Can’t 
I help you to get out of this chimney ? ” said Tom. 

“ No,” interposed the truncheon ; “ he has come to 
the place where everybody must help themselves ; and 
he will find it out, I hope, before he has done with 
me.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Grimes, “ of course it’s me. Did I 
ask to be brought here into the prison ? Did I ask 
to be set to sweep your foul chimneys ? Did I ask 
to have lighted straw put under me to make me go 
up ? Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney of 
all, because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot ? 
Did I ask to stay here — I don’t know how long — a 
hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, 
nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a 
man ? ” 

“No,” answered a solemn voice behind. “No 
more did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very 
same way.” 

It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the 
truncheon saw her, it started bolt upright — Attention I 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND- BABY 


317 


— and made such a low bow, that if it had not been 
full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled on 
its end, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom 
made his bow too. 

“ Oh, ma’am,” he 6 rid, “ don’t think about me ; 
that’s all past and gone, and good times and bad times 
and all times pass over. But may not I help poor 
Mr. Grimes ? Mayn’t I try and get some of these 
bricks away, that he may move his arms ? ” 

“ You may try, of course,” she said. 

So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks : but he 
could not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. 
Grimes’ face : but the soot would not come off. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” he said. “ I have come all this way, 
through all these terrible places, to help you, and now 
I am of no use at all.” 

“ You had best leave me alone,” said Grimes ; “ you 
are a good-natured forgiving little chap, and that’s 
truth ; but you’d best be off The hail’s coming on 
soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little head.” 

“ What hail ? ” 

“ Why, hail that falls every evening here ; and, till 
it comes close to me, it’s like so much warm rain : but 
then it turns to hail over my head, and knocks me 
about like small shot.” 

“ That hail will never come any more,” said the 
strange lady. “ I have told you before what it was. 
It was your mother’s tears, those which she shed when 
she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold 


318 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


heart froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven 
now, and will weep no more for her graceless son.” 

Then Grimes was silent awhile ; and then he looked 
very sad. 

“ So my old mother’s gone, and I never there to 
speak to her ! Ah ! a good woman she was, and 
might have been a happy one, in her little school there 
in Yendale, if it hadn’t been for me and my bad ways.” 

“ Did she keep the school . in Yendale ? ” asked 
Tom. And then he told Grimes all the story of his 
going to her house, and how she could not abide the 
sight of a chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, 
and how he turned into a water-baby. 

“ Ah ! ” said Grimes, “ good reason she had to hate 
the sight of a chimney-sweep. I ran away from her 
and took up with the sweeps, and never let her know 
where I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and 
now it’s too late — too late ! ” said Mr. Grimes. 

And he began crying and blubbering like a great 
baby, till his pipe dropped out of his mouth, and broke 
all to bits. 

“ Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Yendale 
again, to see the clear beck, and the apple- orchard, and 
the yew-hedge, how different I would go on ! But it’s 
too late now. So you go along, you kind little chap, 
and don’t stand to look at a man crying, that’s old 
enough to be your father, and never feared the face of 
man, nor of worse neither. But I’m beat now, and 
beat I must be. I’ve made my bed, and I must lie 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


319 


on it. Foul I would be, and foul l am, as an Irish- 
woman said to me once ; and little I heeded it. 
It’s all my own fault : but it’s too late.” And lie 
cried so bitterly that Tom began crying too. 

“ Never too late,” said the fairy, in such a strange 
soft new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she 
was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom half fancied 
she was her sister. 

No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes 
cried and blubbered on, his own tears did what his 
mother’s could not do, and Tom’s could not do, and 
nobody’s on earth could do for him ; for they washed 
the soot off his face and off his clothes ; and then they 
washed the mortar away from between the bricks ; and 
the chimney crumbled down ; and Grimes began to 
get out of it. 

Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit 
him on the crown a tremendous thump, and drive him 
down again like a cork into a bottle. But the strange 
lady put it aside. 

“ Will you obey me if I give you a chance ? ” 

“ As you please, ma’am. You’re stronger than me 
— that I, know too well, and wiser than me, I know 
too well also. And, as for being my own master, I’ve 
fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever your 
ladyship pleases to order me ; for I’m beat, and that’s 
the truth.” 

“ Be it so then — you may come out. But remember, 
disobey me again, and into a worse place still you go.” 


320 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ I beg pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you 
that I know of. I never had the honour of setting 
eyes upon you till I came to these ugly quarters.” 

“ Never saw me ? Who said to you, Those that 
will be foul, foul they will be ? ” 

Grimes looked up ; and Tom looked up too ; for 
the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them 
the day that they went out together to Harthover. “ I 
gave you your warning then : but you gave it yourself 
a thousand times before and since. Every bad word 
that you said — every cruel and mean thing that you 
did — every time that you got tipsy — every day that 
you went dirty — you were disobeying me, whether you 
knew it or not.” 

“ If I’d only known, ma’am ” 

“ You knew well enough that you were disobeying 
something, though you did not know it was me. But 
come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be 
your last.” 

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, 
if it had not been for the scars on his face, he looked 
as clean and respectable as a master-sweep need look. 

“ Take him away,” said she to the truncheon, “ and 
give him his ticket-of-leave.” 

“ And what is he to do, ma’am ? ” 

“ Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna ; he will 
find some very steady men working out their time 
there, who will teach him his business : but mind, if 
that crater gets choked again, and there is an earth- 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


321 


quake in consequence, bring them all to me, and I 
shall investigate the case very severely.” 

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking 
as meek as a drowned worm. 

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweep- 
ing the crater of Etna to this very day. 

“ And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “ your work 
here is done. You may as well go back again.” 

“ I should be glad enough to go,” said Tom, “ but 
how am I to get up that great hole again, now the 
steam has stopped blowing ? ” 

“ I will take you up the backstairs : but I must 
bandage your eyes first ; for I never allow anybody to 
see those backstairs of mine.” 

“ I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, 
ma’am, if you bid me not.” 

“Aha! So you think, my little man. But you 
would soon forget your promise if you got back into 
the land- world. For, if people only once found out 
that you had been up my backstairs, you would have 
all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men 
emptying their purses before you, and statesmen offer- 
ing you place and power ; and young and old, rich and 
poor, crying to you, ■ Only tell us the great backstairs 
secret, and we will be your slaves ; we will make you 
lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you 
like — only tell us the secret of the backstairs. For 
thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, 
and obeying, and worshipping quacks who told us they 
Y 


322 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


had the key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us 
up them ; and in spite of all our disappointments, we 
will honour, and glorify, and adore, and beatify, and 
translate, and apotheotise you likewise, on the chance 
of your knowing something about the backstairs, that 
we may all go on pilgrimage to it; and, even if we 
cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry — 


‘ Oh, backstairs, 
precious backstairs , 
invaluable backstairs, 
requisite backstairs, 
necessary backstairs, 
good-natured backstairs, 
cosmopolitan backstairs, 
comprehensive backstairs, 
accommodating backstairs, 
well-bred backstairs, 
commercial backstairs, 
economical backstairs, 
practical backstairs, 
logical backstairs, 
deductive backstairs . 


comfortable backstairs, 
humane backstairs, 
reasonable backstairs, 
long-sought backstairs, 
coveted backstairs, 
aristocratic backstairs, 
respectable backstairs, 
gentlemanlike backstairs, 
ladylike backstairs, 
orthodox backstairs, 
probable backstairs, 
credible backstairs, 
demonstrable backstairs, 
irrefragable backstairs, 


potent backstairs, 
all-but-omnipotent backstairs, 
dec. 


Save us from the consequences of our own actions, and 
from the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! ’ Do 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


323 


not you think that you would be a little tempted 
then to tell what you know, laddie ? ” 

Tom thought so certainly. “ But why do they 
want so to know about the backstairs ? ” asked he, 
being a little frightened at the long words, and not 
understanding them the least; as, indeed, he was not 
meant to do, or you either. 

“ That I shall not tell you. I never put things 
into little folks’ heads which are but too likely to come 
there of themselves. So come — now I must bandage 
your eyes.” So she tied the bandage on his eyes with 
one hand, and with the other she took it off. 

“Now,” she said, “you are safe up the stairs.” 
Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth too ; 
for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step, 
But, when he looked round him, there could be no 
doubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever 
they may be, which no man is going to tell you, for 
the plain reason that no man knows. 

The first thing which Tom saw was the black 
cedars, high and sharp against the rosy dawn ; and St. 
Brandan’s Isle reflected double in the still broad silver 
sea. The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the 
water sang among the caves : the sea-birds sang as they 
streamed out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they 
built among the boughs ; and the air was so full of 
song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as 
they slumbered in the shade ; and they moved their 
good old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their 


324 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 



young to understand it. But have patience, and keep 
your eye single, and your hands clean, and you will 
learn some day to sing it yourself, without needing any 
man to teach you. 

And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a 
rock the most graceful creature that ever was seen, 


dreams. But among all the songs one came across the 
water more sweet and clear than all ; for it was the 
song of a young girl’s voice. 

And what was the song which she sang ? Ah, my 
little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


325 


looking down, with her chin upon her hand, and 
paddling with her feet in the water. And when they 
came to her she looked up, and behold it was Ellie. 

“ Oh, Miss Ellie,” said he, “ how you are grown I ” 

“ Oh, Tom,” said she, “ how you are grown too ! ” 
And no wonder ; they were both quite grown up — 
he into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman. 

“ Perhaps I may be grown,” she said. “ I have 
had time enough ; for I have been sitting here waiting 
for you many a hundred years, till I thought you were 
never coming.” 

“ Many a hundred years ? ” thought Tom ; but he 
had seen so much in his travels that he had quite 
given up being astonished ; and, indeed, he could think 
of nothing but Ellie. So he stood and looked at Ellie, 
and Ellie looked at him ; and they liked the employ- 
ment so much that they stood and ^looked for seven 
years more, and neither spoke nor stirred. 

At last they heard the fairy say : “ Attention, 
children. Are you never going to look at me again ? ” 
“ We have been looking at you all this while,” they 
said. And so they thought they had been. 

“ Then look at me once more,” said she. 

They looked — and both of them cried out at once, 
“ Oh, who are you, after all ? ” 

“ You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.” 
“No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ; but 
you are grown quite beautiful now ! ” 

“ To you,” said the fairy. “ But look again.” 


326 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


“ You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in' a very low, 
solemn voice ; for he had found out something which 
made him very happy, and yet frightened him more 
than all that he had ever seen. 

“ But you are grown quite young again.” 

“ To you,” said the fairy. “ Look again.” 

“ You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I 
went to Harthover ! ” 

And when they looked she was neither of them, 
and yet all of them at once. 

“ My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes 
to see it there.” 

And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, and 
they changed again and again into every hue, as the 
light changes in a diamond. 

“ Now read my name,” said she, at last. 

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, 
blazing light : but the children could not read her 
name ; for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in 
their hands. 

“ Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling ; 
and then she turned to Elbe. 

“ You may take him home with you now on 
Sundays, Elbe. He has won his spurs in the great 
battle, and become fit to go with you and be a man ; 
because he has done the thing he did not like.” 

So Tom went home with Elbe on Sundays, and 
sometimes on week-days, too ; and he is now a great 
man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam- 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


327 


engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and 
so forth ; and knows everything about everything, 
except why a hen’s egg don’t turn into a crocodile, 
and two or three other little things which no one 
will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. And all 
this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby, 
underneath the sea. 

“ And of course Tom married Ellie ? ” 

My dear child, what a silly notion ! Don’t you 
know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under 
the rank of a prince or a princess ? 

“ And Tom’s dog ? ” 

Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; for 
the old dog-star was so worn out by the last three hot 
summers that there have been no dog-days since ; so 
that they had to take him down and put Tom’s dog 
up in his place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep 
clean, we may hope for some warm weather this year. 
And that is the end of my story. 


328 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. 


MORAL. 

And now , my dear little man, what should we learn 
from this parable l 

We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things , 1 
am not exactly sure which: but one thing, at least, we 
may learn, and that is this — when we see efts in the 
pond, never to throw stones at them, or catch them with 
crooked pins, or put them into vivariums with stickle- 
backs, that the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor 
little stomachs, and make them jump out of the glass into 
somebody s work-box , and so come to a bad end. For 
these efts are nothing else but the water-babies who are 
stupid and dirty, and will not learn their lessons and 
keep themselves clean ; and, therefore (as comparative 
anatomists will tell you fifty years hence, though they are 
not learned enough to tell you now), their skulls grow 
flat, their jaws grow out, and their brains grow small, 
and their tails grow long, and they lose all their ribs 
(which I am sure you would not like to do), and their 
skins grow dirty and spotted, and they never get into the 
clear rivers, much less into the great 'wide sea, but hang 
about in dirty ponds, and live in the mud, and eat 
worms, as they deserve to do. 

But that is no reason why you should ill-use them : 
but only why you should pity them, and be kind to them, 


VIII 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND-BABY 


329 


and hope that some day they will wake up, and be 
ashamed of their nasty , dirty-, lazy, stupid life, and try 
to amend , and become something better once more. For, 
perhaps, if they do so, then after 379,423 years, nine 
months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one minutes 
{for aught that appears to the contrary ), if they work 
very hard and vjash very hard all that time, their brains 
may grow bigger, and their jaws grow smaller, and their 
ribs come back, and their tails wither off, and they will 
turn into water-babies again, and perhaps after that into 
land-babies ; and after that perhaps into grown men. 

You knovj they won't ? Very well, I daresay you 
know best. But you see, some folks have a great liking 
for those poor little efts. They never did anybody any 
harm, or could if they tried ; and their only faidt is, that 
they do no good — any more than some thousands of their 
betters. But what with ducks, and what with pike, and 
what with sticklebacks, and what with water-beetles, and 
what with naughty boys, they are “ sae sair hodden doun,” 
as the Scotsmen say, that it is a wonder how they live ; 
and some folks can't help hoping, with good Bishop 
Butler, that they may have another chance, to make things 
fair and even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow. 

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank God 
that you have plenty of cold water to ivash in ; and wash 
in it too, like a true Englishman. And then, if my 
story is not true, something better is ; and if I am not 
quite right, still you will be, as long as you stick to hard 
work and cold water. 


330 


THE WATER-BABIES 


CHAP. VIII 


But remember always, as I told you at first , that this 
is all a fairy tale , and only fun and 'pretence : and, 
therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it 
is true. 



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